Preparations for tomorrow's rath yatra festival at ISKCON HQ

Final touches are being given to the preparations for the rath yatra festival beginning tommorrow at the ISKCON headquarters of Mayapur.

More than 100 devotees have been toiling at the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) premises at Mayapur since 'Akshaya Tritiya' festival in summer for preparing the chariots of the deities of Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra for their journey to Gundicha Temple, during rath yatra.

Keeping in view the huge turnout like every year, security arrangements have been tightened at the ISKCON headquarters located in Nadia district of West Bengal.

For the first time, a magnificent Gundicha temple has been constructed at Prabhupad ghat along the Ganga and the deities will be kept there till 'ulta rath', to be held on July 3.

The Kolkata rath yatra festival, also organised by ISKCON, will mark the 46th edition of the chariot festival.

The theme of this year's festival is Ramanuj Acharya, an influential philosopher-saint of Vaishnavism.

State Panchayat and PHE Minister Subrata Mukherjee, Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee and Trinamool Congress MP Subrato Bakshi will be inaugurating ISKCON's rath yatra in the city tomorrow in the absence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is presently in The Hague for a UN programme.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)