Reacting to the Telangana government’s creation of small ponds in the city to immerse the Lord Ganesh idols during Ganesh visarjan and allegations of ‘politicising the event’, General Secretary of the Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samiti Bhagwanth Rao said that God is not a political figure and the festival is not politics.
The “government is making statements that we are doing politics, what’s politics in that and Ganesh Bhagwan is not a political leader and he is a Dharmic personality,” Rao said while revealing that they are holding an indefinite hunger strike until the arrangements promised by the state government are delivered.
“We will stop the indefinite hunger strike when whatever arrangements were promised by the state government are fulfilled. The court had advised making the rubber ponds in the Vinayak Sagar but why was that not made? Why baby ponds? It’s not natural water in baby ponds. According to the culture, for immersing the idol, ponds, lakes or oceans should be chosen,” he said.
Rao further added, “You are making baby ponds but the water used in it is not natural. We have proof that the devotees who take the Ganesh idols there are not even allowed to do immersion by themselves, instead, an official takes the idol to immerse it and then takes the idol to a dump yard.
Notably, Rao has referred Hussain Sagar as Vinayak Sagar as he mentioned about a bike rally that was organised towards ‘Vinayak Sagar’ on September 6 as they were not provided with the necessary arrangements from the government’s end.
“Now we have only two for the last day of immersion and till now (till Monday) no arrangements are made and so to attract the state government a bike rally was organised yesterday towards Vinayak Sagar,” he told ANI on Tuesday.
Rao further added that since the police arrested them instead of elaborating the arrangements for the occasion, so they “gave a representation through police officials to the government that we will go to an indefinite hunger strike and we haven’t got an answer as well yet.”
As per Rao, since the year 1900, Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations are organised under Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samiti every year and around 15 sectors of the government take part in the closing ceremony of the festival.
“Last year, a content petition came before the High court. Before that two chief justices have given the judgement which read that there should be elaborate arrangements by the government for Ganesh visarjan so that within 24 hours of immersion the immersed things could be cleaned,” he said.
He further added, “in 2014 the contempt petitioner, as the government is not doing this job properly, so this comes under contempt and filed a complaint asking the court to intervene and take action through a contempt petition. So it came to the final hearing in 2021.”
“In the final hearing, the government should have put an affidavit saying if it comes under a contempt petition or not. The judgment came in the favor of contempt petitioner as the government pleader never showed up before the court five times during the case. So later the government went to the High court in 2021 against the review of the contempt petitioner saying that this year they cannot make the arrangements and the court here dismissed the plea.”
“Next, the government went to the Supreme Court, where they gave an affidavit stating that the government will ensure that no Ganesh idols will be immersed in the Vinayak Sagar from the next year,” the Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samiti General Secretary said.
Last month the central government in the Marri Channa Reddy Research Centre, government officials, Ministers and the Ganesh Utsav members were present and gave the assurance that whatever arrangements were made since 1900, the same will be made this year as well, he said quoting a minister.
On this, Rao further asked the ministry about the hypocrisy and questioned, “on one side you said that you will not allow a single Ganapati to be immersed in Vinayak Sagar and here you are saying that all the arrangements will be made, which is the right one?” (ANI)