Special pooja offered to Dasara elephants on Ganesh Chaturthi

Mysuru: Mysuru district administration, Forest department and Mysuru Palace board offered special pooja to all 14 Dasara Elephants on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi at Mysuru Palace premises between 11am and 11.45am on Wednesday.

All 14 Elephants, Abhimanyu,Bheema, Mahendra, Ekalavya, Prashantha, Dhananjaya, Kanjan, Sugreeva, Srikanta, Gopi, Roopa, Hemavathi Lakshmi, Kaveri lined up at the backdrop of Mysuru Palace for the Pooja.

Mysuru DC G Lakshmikanth Reddy, ADC P Shivaraju, DCF I B Prabhu Gowda, RFO Syed Nadeem, DIG Southern Range M B Borelingaiah, Mysore City Police Commissioner Seema Latkar, DCPs R N Bindu Mani, K S Sundar Raju, Mysuru Palace Board Deputy Director T S Subramanya, Palace Board ACP H M Chandrashekar participated in the pooja.

They specially offered Holige along with eatables like Chakli, Kodbale, Karji Kaayi, Kajjaaya, Jaggery, Sugarcane and fruits like banana, apple and others to Pachyderms.

Even as the guests offered pooja and floral obeisance to them, the gentle giants lifted their trunks and greeted every one.

Mysuru DC Lakshmikanth Reddy and DCF Prabhu Gowda said that, even as Elephants are 'Ganapathi swaroopa' (face of Ganapathi), they have offered pooja for successful Dasara celebrations.

DC Reddy also informed that they have formed 19 sub committees and preparations for Dasara have begun two months in advance. The preparations are brisk. They will start inviting the Governor, Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister, all elected representatives, inaugurator and all other guests from the first week of September.

DCF Prabhugowda informed that the training for Elephants is going well and all the Elephants are healthy. They are likely to start training Abhimanyu and a few other male Elephants to carry the weight equivalent to golden howdah from the beginning of September, he said.

Meanwhile, the Forest department offered a festive feast to the caretakers of Dasara Elephants. They offered them a plantain leaf spread of Holige, poori, bajji, veg pulav, raaitha, rice, noggekaayi bele sambar, thilisaaru, beans carrot palya, soppu avare kaalu palya, curds and banana to them on the occasion of Festival.