Noida: The Jagannath Temple at Garhi Choukhandi in sector 121 of Noida organised the annual Car festival recently. Around 5,000 devotees alongwith their family members gathered here to witness the ceremony. At 5.00 a.m., Mangala Arati was performed before the deities in the temple. The placement of chariot and other related rituals were performed at around 11.00 a.m. The idols were offered 56 types of Bhogs, specially prepared for the occasion at noon.

The Pahandi Bije of deities to the 24ft high colourfully decorated chariot started around 2 p.m. The entire atmosphere got reverberated with the recitals of hymns, roaring of slogans like Haribol and Jai Jagannath, sounding of Huluhuli, blowing of conch and playing of musical instruments such as Ghanta, Kartala, Mardala, Jhanja and Mrudanga by the devotees.

The traditional service of sweeping in front of the chariot called Chherapahanra was done by noted entrepreneur and philanthropist Dipak Singhal. The pulling of Chariot commenced at about 3.00 p.m.

The chariot having four deities onboard were pulled by devotees till 3 k.m. to the Aunt’s House located at Baba Balaknath Temple in Sector 71 of Noida. The chariot reached their destination in the evening. At Baba Balaknath Temple, the Idols were taken in a procession to the Aunt’s house and were placed in the special podium in night.

The massive arrangements of Rath Yatra festival was organized by the office bearers and members of Temple Management Committee which include President Biswanath Tripathy, General Secretary Dr Manoranjan Mohanty, Vice President Pramod Bal and Nigamananda Mohanty, Joint Secretary Dhaneswar Nayak and executive body members Subala Behera, Dillip Swain, Debu Mishra, Akshay Swain, Prashant Khillar, Abhimanyu Parida, Ramesh Nayak, Prakash Ray, A.R.Parija, Bharat Pradhan, Kishore Parida and Dr Bimbadhar Rath.

The distinguished guests who participated in the event included National President of Hindu Mahasabha Swami Chakrapani Maharaj, Kumar Brijesh, Police Commissioner Laxmi Singh, District Magistrate Manish Kumar Verma, MLA of Dadri Tej Pal Nagar, Rajya Sabha M.P. Surender Nagar, Chairman of the U.P. Council of Agricultural Research Capt. Vikash Gupta and Former Minister Nabab Singh Nagar.