All invited to Chhath Puja: Nirupam

MUMBAI: Reiterating that Chhath Puja, celebrated by a group named Bihar Front every year, will have no political agenda, its convener and Congress party leader Sanjay Nirupam said every one was invited to the November 4 event.
Nirupam said he was not sending out personal invitations to rival political parties but the invitation was meant for one and all.
Celebrated a week after Diwali, Chhath Puja is one of the most important festivals in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. The festival is dedicated to the Sun God. It is celebrated in parts of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
The celebrations of Chhath Puja acquired political overtones when Maharashtra leader Raj Thackeray's party MNS accused certain north Indian leaders of politicising the festival and using it to demonstrate their muscle power in Maharashtra.
"It is purely meant to be a social and religious event to bring people together and there is no political mileage intended to be achieved from it," said Nirupam who is also a former Member of Parliament.
Despite the vulnerable environment as a fallout of the recent violence in Mumbai targeting mainly people from north India, Nirupam said there was no need to panic about Chhath Puja next month, as the event would pass off peacefully.
Upbeat about the recent Supreme Court order allowing the use of loudspeakers for crowd management during Chhath Puja this year, Nirupam reminded that the festival was meant to bring together people of all castes and communities.
Nirupam's Bihar Front began the practice of celebrating mass Chhath Puja in 1998 that gradually started drawing huge crowds. Subsequently, it led to speculations among some people that he was doing it to gain political mileage out of it and establish a north Indian supremacy in the state.
The festivities have grown by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years, mainly because there were no other common festivals of UP celebrated in the city unlike Navratri and Ganpathy celebrated by Gujaratis and Maharashtrians.
Seeing the mammoth crowd, Bihar Front shifted the venue to the sea shore at Juhu beach on the western suburbs of Mumbai that has a 9-kilometre sea shore, which can hold the massive crowd. Chhath involves worship of the rising and the setting sun, where devotees pray and make offerings to the God by standing at least knee deep in water.
Every year lakhs of devotees come together to celebrate Chhath Puja in Mumbai and Nirupam says he wants it to be observed in the same spirit as the other festivals like Ganpathy and Navratri (with nine nights of dandiya performances) in the city that are observed with great pomp and gaiety.
During festivals like Dahi Handi and Ganpathy in the city several political parties hoist their party flags and put cut outs and posters of their leaders at various pandals and nobody objects to it.
Nirupam said taking a cue from others, his party men also started using flags since they felt nobody would mind, and with so many thronging to the puja they saw it as an appropriate opportunity for them to get closer to the people who in turn learned more about the party's programmes and activities.
Earlier this year MNS chief Raj Thackeray threatened not to allow Chhath Puja in Mumbai because he said north Indians were using it to browbeat Maharashtrians. This led to a fracas between Bihari leaders, the Lalu-Rabri duo and Raj, with the former daring MNS chief to stop them from conducting the puja in Mumbai this year.
On Wednesday the newspapers reported that Lalu would not be visiting Mumbai to participate in Chhath Puja. This has laid to rest the chance of any further skirmish between warring politicians for the time being.
Recently, the state's chief minister also called a meeting instructing all concerned government authorities to see that the Chhath Puja was performed peacefully.
Unperturbed by the brouhaha surrounding the puja, Nirupam said, "This year too Chhath Puja will be celebrated with the same vigour and a stage would be set up to keep the devotees engaged. There has never been any stampede and the functions go off peacefully." He further appealed, "Don't panic and don't terrorise people."
Apart from the police force, there will be around 200-300 private securities personnel and volunteers who would help manage the crowd.
Besides the worship of the Sun God, a cultural event with folk songs etc will be held so that the devotees can join in the celebrations after the puja at the water front.
NRIs from Bihar and UP too join in the celebrations each year. In the wake of the recent violent events in Mumbai, it's not clear, however, whether this year they would be enthusiastic to be part of the show.
Displaying his environment consciousness, Nirupam did not forget to add, "Every year, a day after the puja, I go back to the beach (venue) and with the aid of my volunteers sweep the area clean. This is something I have not seen after the Ganpathy immersions in Mumbai, when it's left to the government agencies to clean the beach."
Nirupam is rued about the amount of Rs 1 lakh that he has to deposit with the civic authorities before performing the puja this year. As it is a court order he'll have to comply, he said. Nirupam maintained he received the order quite late so he couldn't ignore it. He will appeal against it next year asking why he was being singled out to pay when it was not mandatory for others (involved in religious festivals) to make such deposits.
Nirupam also organises Navratri and Durga Puja festivals. "Such common festivals are the strength of our nation. So do not politicise it," he urges.
The Chhath Puja Samanvaya Samiti is a unit of Bihar Front, Mumbai and it organises the event. Last year, nearly five lakh devotees visited the venue for the mass celebration of Chhath puja in Mumbai.