12-hr target missed by 13 hrs

The delay was mainly because of the long gaps between successive mandals reaching the point of immersion. Heavy showers were also partly responsible.

Last year,3,018 Ganesh mandals had taken part,according to the police commissionerate. The number was 2,307 this year. Out of the 3,043 registered mandals,736 had immersed the idols on the ninth day and hence fewer mandals remained for the last day of the festival,police said.

The procession started at 10.30 am Thursday with Manache Ganapati of Kasba Ganapati Mandal entering the Laxmi Road procession route. The last mandal completed its procession at 11.45 am on Friday. The Jai Maharashtra Tarun Mandal was the last to reach the immersion point via Tilak Road.

District collector Chandrakant Dalvi,who had appealed to all mandals to wrap up the procession in 12 hours in view of swine flu,said the administration,though it could not enforce the deadline; was successful in minimising crowds for the major part of the day. “It was only during night that the procession saw some crowd,” Dalvi said. Earlier,police commissioner Satyapal Singh had appealed to mandals to wind up the processions in 20 hours.

Both deadlines were overshot as the gaps between Ganesh mandals on the immersion route became longer by the day,though it also made the work of the police deployed on bandobast duty easier. A case in point was the Tambadi Jogeshwari Mandal (the second prominent Ganapati) and Guruji Talim Mandal (third prominent Ganapati) procession. Tambadi Jogeshwari Mandal reached Tilak junction (the last point on the immersion route) at 2.15 pm and Guruji Talim Mandal reached there an hour later,at 3.20 pm.

Guruji Talim Mandal,that usually uses gulaal on a big scale,shunned it this time. But mandal volunteers took a long time at each stop to dance,causing delays.

Like the previous years,stray incidents of hooliganism were reported during night hours,which added to the delay. Volunteers of Gurudatta Mitra Mandal allegedly led by PMC corporator Uday Mahale ransacked the pandal at Tilak junction when police tried to stop them from bursting firecrackers on the route. About 200 volunteers of the mandal hurled chairs and shouted slogans against NCP leader Ajit Pawar. Senior officers,including deputy commissioners Ravindra Sengaonkar and Anil Kumbhare,rushed to the spot. The police resorted to lathicharge to control the situation. Mahale has been booked.