All roads lead to Tripureswari Temple in Udaipur and the celebration of the Diwali festival with all pomp and religious fervor at the Matabari temple started on Thursday evening with inauguration of a three-day long festival and fair by Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha.

On Thursday evening, Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha through a brief programme inaugurated the Diwali festival at Mata Bari and highlighted the temple developmental initiative through ‘Prasad’ scheme and added that entire construction in the temple complex will be completed within a short period. Dr Saha said after completion of all ongoing construction works, Mata Bari temple will be a most attractive destination for devotees.

After inauguration, the Chief Minister also offered prayer and participated in the ‘Mangal Arati’.

During inauguration of the ‘Diwali Mela’ Chief Minister along with former chief minister and incumbent MP, Biplab Kumar Deb, Ministers Pranajit Singha Roy, Sushanta Chowdhury, MLA Rampada Jamatia, Jitendra Majumder and local MLA Abhishek Debroy with other dignitaries were present.

Devotees turned up in droves since early morning at Tripura Thursday Kali temple in Udaipur and few temples located at Agartala including in Uma Maheshwari temple and Kali Puja by 8-Town Bardowali Mondal in front of Rabindra Satabarshiki Bhavan, Indranagar Kali temple, where Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha was also visited and offered his prayers.

Civil and police administrations are taking all out measures to make the celebration a grand success. While the entire area was decorated and illuminated by professionals, thousands of devotees since early morning started thronging the temple premises turning it into a sea of humanity.

Matabari Mela Committee’s (Diwali Mela-2024) Chairman and local MLA Abhishek Debroy said, ICAT and Tribal Welfare department will organize various cultural functions during the festival. Moreover, all the state government departments also set up 18 stalls in festival premises to exhibit developmental works.

Debroy said there will be a number of government stalls and over 639 private stalls in mela premises. Hundreds of volunteers have been deployed for the smooth running of the mela along with police personnel.

The administration has taken extra measures to prevent all sorts of gambling. “Besides, all were asked not to blare popular filmy albums at Matabari premises”, said Debroy.

Giving details of the festival preparedness, Matabari Mela Committee’s (Diwali Mela-2023) Chairman and local MLA Abhishek Debroy speaking with media said that a large number of police and other security personnel has been deployed in the entire premises of the fair complex.

He said that about 1000 volunteers have also been deployed in the fair complex along with police and security personnel. As many as 47 close circuit cameras (CCTV) have been installed in the entire fair complex. Different departments of the state government are working round the clock to make the fair a grand success like previous years, said Debroy.

He said Diwali Mela will be organized from October 31st to November 2nd at the premises of Mata Tripura Sundari temple and during the festival days, exhibitions, cultural events and ‘Kalyan Arati’ will be performed at Kalyan Sagar Lake.

He said that all the departments of state government will open stalls in festival premises to exhibit developmental works.  He said, several giant generators would be installed in the festival complex as back up for power failure. Though there are fewer chances for load shedding during the festivities of light and adequate numbers of ambulance and fire fighter vehicles will also be kept in readiness in the fair premises.

The entire temple premises have been illuminated with special kinds of lights by a famous decorator from Chandan Nagar of West Bengal. Apart from these, the festival committee has also set up other basic amenities like toilets, rest places etc for the devotees. The Mela committee appealed to people to contribute their best to make the festival a grand success.

Meanwhile, SP of Gomati district, Namit Pathak said that tight security arrangements have been made in the entire Mela premises just two days before the festival. Adequate number of police and TSR personnel with other paramilitary forces have been deployed in entire Udaipur town along with plain clothes security personnel, said Pathak adding that number of watch tower were set up and several numbers of close-circuit cameras (CCTVs) will also have been installed in and around the temple to monitor security conditions.

Police with dog squads have been carrying out search operations in various parts of Udaipur and festival areas.

In addition, several drop-gates have also been installed for security covers and a bomb squad team would work round the clock, said SP.

He added that    several parking areas have also been identified to avoid traffic jams. Police hoped that compared with last year, this year more devotees would throng the temple premises.