Budameru flood takes sheen off Vinayaka Chavithi celebrations in Vijayawada

Vijayawada's Vinayaka Chavithi celebrations scaled down due to floods, with Ganesh idol standing in murky water.

The Vinayaka Chavithi festivities are going to be a low-key affair this year in Vijayawada as the city is still reeling under the devastating floods caused by the Budameru rivulet.

In K.L. Rao Colony, the pandal that once used to host a Ganesh idol now houses relief materials and rows of packed water bottles stocked one over another.

“What celebrations can there be when so many of us have lost our houses and properties? We cannot celebrate the festival on a grand scale during such times. There will be no pandal this time,” said Vimala Kumari, an old woman, adding that the rise in the water levels again was giving them jitters.

Near Sitara Centre, where a stage was set for the nine-day celebrations, the 72-foot-high environment-friendly Ganesh idol stands in 2-foot murky water. When the organisers realised that pumping out water using motors was yielding no result, they have begun constructing a three-and-a-half-foot-high platform, with 10 feet width, for people to go near the idol.

“Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan were supposed to attend the inaugural of the festival on September 7 (Saturday). We expected around 2 lakh people to have darshan of the deity on the first day of the festival. But now, we do not think more than 30,000 people would come,” said Doondi Rakesh, a member of the Doondi Ganesh Seva Samithi that is organising the puja.

On a three-acre site, they made grand preparations including setting up floodlights, puja mandaps, a separate parking for two-wheelers and four wheelers, a separate entry for VIPs— all are now under floodwaters. “In 2015, 2016 and 2017, we organised the celebrations at Gymkhana and the government music and dance college grounds. This is the first time we installed the idol here, because parking was becoming a problem in the previous venues,” he said.

The Ganesh idol, made up of mud, is taller than the Khairtabad idol in Hyderabad. It took 70 days for 90 artisans to ready the idol, which is yet to be painted. “Works on completing construction of the platform and painting should be over by Saturday afternoon. Devotees will be allowed darshan from the evening,” Mr. Rakesh, State president of Telugu Nadu Trade Cell, said. He declined to divulge details about the loss incurred by the Samithi.