Soaked in festive fervour, pandal hoppers bring city traffic to a halt

Bringing the city traffic to a standstill and drenched to the hilt in festive fervour, lakhs of pandal hoppers are sweeping the cops off their feet who are trying to manage the rush.

This year, beating the Ashtami-Navami crowd, Puja hoppers have started visiting mandaps in large numbers from Chaturthi itself.

Despite the police deploying additional personnel at all necessary areas, traffic snarls have gripped areas hosting big-ticket Pujas. “The bumper-to-bumper traffic snarls are just a small hindrance and are certainly not cause enough to dent the Puja spirit,” stated a pandal-hopper summing up the mood of the people in the state capital.

At a time when office-goers return home, lakhs of people thronged Puja mandaps of Deshapriya Park, Suruchi Sangha, Ekdalia Evergreen and Singhi Park in South Kolkata making it difficult for vehicles to pass alongside pandal hoppers, notwithstanding the buses that regularly ply.

Meanwhile, on the occasion, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday wished ‘Maha Chaturthi’ to the people of Bengal. In North Kolkata, like every year, the Sreebhumi Puja saw a huge crowd on Chaturthi too. People poured in large numbers in other Pujas like College Square, Haati Bagan Sarbojanin, Md Ali Park and Santosh Mitra Square.

The Regional MeT office predicted that a low-pressure area is likely to form over central parts of Bay of Bengal around

October 20.

South Bengal will mostly stay dry till October 22. On October 23, there may be rainfall in several districts, including Kolkata, North 24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas, Hooghly, Howrah and East Midnapore. The MeT office predicted light rainfall in Darjeeling and Kalimpong till October 20. There will be mainly dry weather in North Bengal between October 21 and 24, the weather office said.

However, there will be a change in weather on Navami and Dashami, especially in the coastal and adjoining districts.