Mumbai bids farewell to Ganpati; nearly 2 lakh idols immersed

MUMBAI: The 12-day festival of Ganeshotsav culminated with touching farewells at Anant Chaturdashi visarjan on Friday. The Lalbaugcha Raja was the last to be immersed at Girgaum Chowpatty Saturday morning. Its procession made a brief halt outside the Hindustan Masjid in Byculla in a sign of mutual respect.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and deputy CM Eknath Shinde attended visarjan at Girgaum Chowpatty Friday. Fortified civic and traffic arrangements ensured smooth passage.

A total of 199,325 idols were immersed at the end of the festival, said BMC. As many as 10,536 were sarvajanik idols, 182,048 household, while 6,741 were Gauri/Hartalika idols. The solid waste management dept collected 934.26 metric tonnes of floral waste by Saturday.

Joint commissioner, traffic, Satya Narayan Chowdhary said, "This year is the first time traffic, including pedestrians and vehicles in Lalbaug area, has been managed in the absence of historic Elphinstone and Sion bridges. Twelve days of darshan and visarjan concluded smoothly without any traffic problem. In an innovative move, we also created parking place for Lalbaug-Parel area on BPT land.