Secunderabad comes alive with Bonalu fervour

Secunderabad: The famous Secunderabad Ujjaini Mahankali Bonalu celebrations were held in a grand manner on Sunday. Right from the crack of dawn, devotees queued up before the temple and performed special puja to the presiding deity.

Endowments Minister A Indrakaran Reddy and Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav presented silk clothes on behalf of the State government to the goddess. Indrakaran Reddy and his wife also presented 'bonam' to the goddess.

Speaking on the occasion, Indrakaran Reddy said that he had prayed for the well being of people of the State and for the prevention of the Covid. Several prominent persons of the State also offered worship to the goddess. They included Governor of Haryana Bandaru Dattatreya and TPCC chief A Revanth Reddy.

Wife of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, Shoba and J Santosh Kumar, MP also participated in the celebrations. The temple officials asked the devotees to pray at the temple by following Covid norms.

The police made massive arrangements by roping in the services of 2,500 personnel in and around the temple to avoid any untoward incident. They put up 200 CCTV cameras to monitor the areas in and around the temple. They imposed traffic restrictions to avoid any inconvenience to visitors to the shrine.

Bandi flays CM

Meanwhile, State BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar took part in the Bonalu celebrations. He said that he had prayed for the welfare of people. "It was the tradition of people of the State to present 'bonam' to the deity every year.

He said women carrying the traditional 'bonam' reflected the culture of Telangana. Sanjay said he had prayed the deity to bless Prime Minister Narendra Modi to rule the country in a more effective manner.

Targeting the Chief Minister, he alleged that he sleeps in his farm house and returns to the State capital only to lie to people of the State. The MP charged the CM with misleading people by promising to solve their problems .

He alleged that the CM had distributed Rs.10,000 compensation to only some flood victims last year and forgot about it after the GHMC election. He demanded KCR to come to the rescue of priests of temples in rural areas. Sanjay warned that the BJP would fight for rights of priests of village temples if the government did not take any decision on the issue.

Wine shops shut

In a related development, Anjani Kumar, Commissioner of Police, and Additional District Magistrate (Executive) of Hyderabad has ordered closure of toddy/wine shops, including bars in restaurants (excluding bars in star hotels and registered clubs) from 6 am on July 25 to 6 am on July 27 on account of the Bonalu festival.

The order was issued in the interest of public peace and tranquillity and will be enforced in the limits of the following police stations of Central and North zones.

North Zone: Gopalpuram, Chilkalguda, Lalaguda and Tukaramgate police stations (Gopalpuram division); Mahankali, Market, Marredpally, Karkhana police stations (Mahankali division) ; Begumpet and Trimulgherry police stations (Begumpet division).

Central Zone: Ramgopalpet police station (Saifabad division) and Gandhinagar police station (Chikkadpally division).