Team Herald
VASCO: Residents of the allegedly illegal structures at Baina may have an uphill battle ahead, but it hasn’t deterred them from celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi as they had been doing for several years.
Last year, the residents living close to the shore had erected a pandal and installed an idol of Lord Ganesh. Keeping aside all worries, they kick started a five-day ‘Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav’ celebration in the hopes that lord Ganesha would save their houses from being demolished by the administration.
“This will be the 17th year of Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav, and it was possible only due to the participation of residents. After a few structures were demolished, some left the area. But the rest decided to keep the tradition alive. We will be doing it in the future too, even if the govt removes us by demolishing our structures,” said Rajesh Nair.
, who started the tradition 16 years back along with a few other locals.
The residents, who are mostly from the labour class, collected donations from locals and well-wishers, besides pooling in their own money to organize a ‘grand’ festival. They have avoided seeking donations from leaders of the ruling party as they feel that the leaders, whom they voted for in the last Assembly elections, have betrayed them.
“It is election month. More and more people have started visiting our area, trying to convince us to vote for them and luring us with donations. We don’t want alms as no leader from the ruling party has stood by us in this difficult time. Only one Congress leader stood with us and helped us organize this festival. We hope that our prayers will bear fruits and Ganesha will save out structures,” said Vasant Kumar Saini, a local.
The residents stated that last year’s festivity was much bigger, due to which they had decided to extend the festival from five days to seven. However, they had to revert to five days as they lacked an electricity connection. After their requests, the electricity department permitted a temporary power connection to the pandal.
“After last year’s celebrations, we had planned to make this year’s festival much bigger. But we had no clue that this year’s Ganesh celebration would be without power and water,” said Prakash Rathod, a Baina resident.
He also claimed that since they had begun preparing for Ganesh Chaturthi, things had started going in their favour. He stated, “With the blessings of Ganesha, our case which was being heard by the National Green Tribunal, Pune bench got disposed off. We are sure that God will find some way to resolve the CRZ case.”
