Final round of rehearsals for Dasara elephants begin at Mysuru Palace premises

Mysuru: With just four days remaining for Dasara Jamboo Savari procession, the final round of rehearsals for Dasara elephants began in front of Mysuru Palace on Thursday morning. 

Excluding Bheema and Dhananjaya, who are participating as 'Pattada Aane' for Sharannavarathri rituals of erstwhile royal family of Mysuru Palace, all other 12 elephants participated in the rehearsal.

During the procession on Vijayadashami, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would offer floral tribute to idol of Goddess Chamundeshwari, housed in Golden howdah carried by elephant Abhimanyu, from the podium in front of Mysuru Palace.

DCF Saurabh Kumar, DCP Mounted Police Company, V Shailendra, CAR ACP H P Sathish, ACP Palace Board H M Chandrashekar offered floral tribute to Abhimanyu symbolically. Arjuna marched as Nishaane elephant. Other male elephants Mahendra, Gopi, Kanjan, Rohith, Hiranya, Sugreeva and Prashanth, female Elephant Vijaya participated in the rehearsal. 

Eight police platoons including six armed platoons and two mounted platoons participated in the rehearsal. Each platoon had 30 members led by one platoon commander. In all 30 members from CAR (City Armed Reserve), 30 from DAR (District Armed Reserve), 60 from KSRP (Karntaka State Reserve Police), 30 home guards, 30 members from RPF (Railway Protection Force), 60 from mounted police from Mounted Police company were part of the team.

Also, 45 members of English police band led by B Manjunath participated in the rehearsal. During the procession, a total of 105 members will be part of the band which would accompany Howdah elephant. Those include 30 members of English band from Mysuru, 25 members from fifth battalion of KSRP from Mysuru, 20 members from 11th battalion of KSRP Hassan, 10 members from second battalion of KSRP from Belagavi, 20 members from eighth KSRP battalion from Shivamogga. 

According to DCF Saurab Kumar, final rehearsals will be held for two more days on Friday and Sunday. On Sunday, the final list of elephants which will participate in the procession and their roles will be announced.