Bonalu festivities at Hyderabad's Old City began in full swing today. The area was gripped with a festive air on the occasion.
Hundreds thronged the ornately decked up Lal Darwaza Simhavahini temple and 23 other temples in the area which were done up with glittering lights and flowers and mango leaves as well.
Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav presented silk clothes to the presiding deity at the Lal Darwaza temple which also attracted other high-profile devotees including ministers Mohammad Mahmood Ali, Indrakaran Reddy, Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya, TPCC chief Revanth Reddy, and BJP head Bandi Sanjay Kumar.
After the prayers, Yadav told the media that he had prayed to Goddess Simhavahini to shower her blessings on all the people of the state.
"Shortly after formation of Telangana, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had declared Bonalu as a state festival and ever since then our government has taken up the task of making all the arrangements for the festival each year. This year, for the first time, we have given funds to private temples as well," the minister added.
The bhavishyavani (prediction) ceremony will be held at the Lal Darwaza Simhavahini temple on Monday and the ambari procession will be held on Monday evening. The temple authorities have brought an elephant named Lakshmi from Karnataka for this year's celebrations.
Since the festival is being celebrated in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the management bodies of all temples have made careful arrangements to ensure adherence to social distance norms.
Ahead of the festivities, the city police had made
all the necessary arrangements to provide "hassle- free darshans" to devotees.
As part of this, medical camps and drinking water facilities have been set up at all the temples and special queue lines have been formed for women, responsible for presenting the bonams (offerings) to the goddess.
The police have also imposed traffic restrictions in different places of the city to avoid any kind of traffic hiccups.
The Bonalu festivities which began at the Golconda temple were being observed across various parts of the city over the past few weeks. The festival is being celebrated at Kanakadurgamma temple at Vijayawada and in New Delhi as well.