Kolkata: The city looked like a mobile float with thousands of people visiting the pandals on Shashti evening on Monday.
Puja revellers waited for hours together to enter Chetla Agrani and Suruchi Sangha pandals which are the two major attractions in South Kolkata. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has composed the theme song of Suruchi Sangha.
Chetla Agrani Club has been witnessing staggering footfall since Chaturthi. The number has surpassed other famous South Kolkata Pujas like Tridhara Sammillani, Deshopriya Park and the likes. The organisers are overwhelmed and maintained that lakhs of people are visiting the pandal round-the-clock.
Tridhara Sammilani saw a footfall of around 3 lakh people on the day of Shashti. The organisers said the footfall tend to increase during the night and would shoot up from Saptami.
As the weather was perfect, people were out on the streets since afternoon in huge numbers. There were intermittent showers just before the Puja but for the rest of the week, the forecast is sunny and clear sky.
Ekdalia Evergreen witnessed huge footfall on Monday. Flouting the trend of theme pandal and idol, Evergreen still sticks to the old tradition. Subrata Mukherjee, state minister for Panchayats and Rural Development who is the main organiser of the Puja, said: "We stick to the tradition as we are worshipping Mother Durga." The puja was inaugurated by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
People also visited the famous houses where traditional Pujas are organised for generations now. The house of Nabakrishna Dev in Sovabazar is celebrating the Puja for the 261st year. Lord Clive had come to see the Puja in 1757 after winning the Battle of Plassey. People also visited the house of Shiv Krishna Dawn in North Kolkata. Earlier, the thakurdalan was decorated with jewellery mainly diamonds and emeralds which were imported from abroad.
Bagbazar Sarbojanin Durgotsav is celebrating its centenary year. At Sreebhumi, around 65,000 people visited the pandal in the evening.
Thousands of people visited Belur Math where Durga Puja is being organised since 1901 when Swami Vivekananda first started it. The devotees visited the Ramakrishna temple and enjoyed devotional songs and recitation of hymns by the monks and Bramhacharins of the Order.
To ensure smooth movement of the pandal-hoppers and keep a check on traffic, the Kolkata Police did not allow cars to be parked on the main thoroughfares. Senior police officers including Rajeev Kumar, Commissioner of Police was found patrolling along with other senior officers.