HYDERABAD: The entire city of Hyderabad, including the Old City, wore a festive look on Sunday as thousands of devotees thronged to various Mahankali temples and offered prayers on the occasion of the Bonalu festival, an important state festival of Telangana.
The festival, which saw pulsating drumbeats and Telugu folk songs reverberating from lanes and bylanes across the city, was celebrated with traditional gaiety and fervour amidst tight security arrangements by the police. Serpentine queues aligned themselves at almost all the Mahankali temples across the city.
The Lal Darwaza Mahankali Temple, the historic Akkanna Madanna Mahankali temple, and Hari Bowli in Shah Ali Banda which are the main centres for Bonalu festivities in the Old City, witnessed a huge turnout of devotees, including ministers, MPs, MLAs, political leaders and other officials. Attired in their best, women queued up at the temples to offer ‘Bonam’.
On behalf of the Telangana Government, cabinet ministers Indra Karan Reddy and T Srinivas Yadav made offerings of silk clothes at the Mahankali Temples. Congress leader Jana Reddy; former Tamil Nadu governor K Rosaiah; CWC member and State in-charge R C Khuntia; TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy; BJP president K Laxman, G Kishan Reddy, T Raja Singh; former MP and actress Vijayashanti were among other prominent personalities who participated in the festivities.
G Niranjan, president, Sri Akkanna Madanna Mahankali Mandir, Haribowli, told Express that the 10-day festival would conclude on Monday with the oracle prediction, i.e., Rangam at 11 am, followed by a combined procession from various temples.
Cops prevent collapse of arch set up at Akkana- Madanna temple
Timely response of the Task Force sleuths posted near Akkana-Madanna Mahankali temple at Lal Darwaza averted a mishap on Sunday. Noticing the arch gateway near the temple crashing down, the policemen held on to the gateway and prevented it from collapsing. No one was injured. The partially collapsed structure was later removed.