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Chhagan Bhujbal rakes up another controversy over festival prayers
Bhujbal was speaking at Nashik on Monday while addressing the Satya Shodak Samaj centenary year conference which is organised in the memory of late Hari Narke
PUNE Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and food and civic supplies minister Chhagan Bhujbal on Monday triggered another controversy by claiming that thousands of women gathered to pray ‘Atharvashirsha’, but no one turned up at nearby Mahatma Phule Wada and Bhide School.
Bhujbal was speaking at Nashik on Monday while addressing the Satya Shodak Samaj centenary year conference which is organised in the memory of late Hari Narke, an astute scholar, ardent follower of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and ideologue of the OBC movement in Maharashtra .
Like every year, thousands of women congregated at the sacred Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati temple during the ongoing Ganpati festival.
This gathering, which took place on the second day of the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, is often a spiritual spectacle as the temple premises resounds with holy chants as women come together to recite the Ganpati ‘Atharvashirsha’ prayers, a pivotal part of the Ganeshotsav festivities.
The Bhide Wada, where Mahatma Phule and Savitribai Phule started the first school for women, is located near Dagdusheth Ganpati temple.
Bhujbal said, “The state government implemented the Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Act in 2014, but still people are turning towards superstition.”
“Thousands of women had gathered to pray ‘Atharvashirsha’, but no one turned up towards Mahatma Phule Wada,” he said.
Earlier too Bhujbal has raked up a row over his remarks that questioned the displaying of portrait of goddess Saraswati at schools in Maharashtra.
