Puri Rath Yatra begins amid curfew to prevent crowd of devotees. Bhubaneswar News – Times of India

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha’s biggest annual festival, Rath Yatra, was celebrated without crowd of devotees in Puri on Monday. Like last year, the government imposed curfew in the city of Puri to prevent any public gathering during the grand festivities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Others greeted the people on the auspicious Rath Yatra.

Over 2,000 sevaks, whose RT-PCR report came negative, were allowed to perform rituals and pull chariots. The government allowed 500 sevaks to pull the three chariots. The proceedings of the festival were telecast live on TV channels.

The rituals were started at around 4.30 am by the sevadars inside the temple. It was a joy to see the brothers and sisters—Jagannath, Balabhadra and the goddess Subhadra—carrying chariots from the temple to the chariots amidst a mountain procession and the beat of cymbals and alligators. Descendants of the erstwhile kingdom of Utkal and chairman of Jagannath Temple Management Committee, Gajapati Dibyasingha Deb He served his hereditary chhera wearing chariots.

Riding on bedded chariots, the deities begin their annual migration Gundicha Temple (His birthplace) by traveling 3 km on the Grand Road. The festivities were going on smoothly till the time of writing this news. Puri District Collector Samarth Verma said, “All arrangements have been made for the smooth conduct of the festival. No untoward incident has been reported.”