No Ganeshotsav at Mumbai’s iconic mandal this year

MUMBAI: It’s among the biggest idols and it gets the biggest crowds. Ganeshotsav, for many of those who celebrate it, is incomplete without a visit to Lalbaugcha Raja, arguably Mumbai’s favourite pandal.

This year, however, there will be no idol there, no aartis, no queues snaking all the way down Ambedkar Road in the heart of the city. For the first time in the pandal’s 86 years, the Lalbaugcha Raja committee will not install a murti due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

MUMBAI: There will be no Ganesh idol at Mumbai’s famous Lalbaugcha Raja for the first time in 86 years after the state government instituted strict norms that organizers said would make it impossible to install the towering idols that drew 15 million visitors last year.

Instead, the Lalbaugcha Raja committee said it will hold an 11-day blood and plasma donation drive, starting August 22.

To promote social distancing as the city battles mounting Covid infections, the Maharashtra government capped the height for all Ganesha idols at 4 ft this year — because the largest idols tend to have the largest processions and visitor counts.

But the organizing committee decided they would skip a year rather than alter their Ganesha.

The decision wasn’t an easy one, admitted Santosh Kambli, chief sculptor of the idol. “Our family has been making the idol for three generations. To not make one this year is upsetting. But we cannot reduce the height of the idol we have worshipped for 86 years.”

Devotees said they were upset. “The decision is understandable, but that doesn’t mean I’ll miss him any less,” said Ajinkya Mhatre, 68, a retired banker who has sought darshan every year for 47 years.

Kambli’s father Ratnakar, 79, who usually adds the finishing touches , says the whole family is missing Bappa.