Nearly 95K devotees throng Chaitya Bhoomi despite Omicron scare

MUMBAI Despite the Omicron threat looming large over the state, nearly 95,000 devotees visited Chaitya Bhoomi memorial at Dadar to pay tribute to Dr BR Ambedkar on the occasion of the 66th death anniversary on Monday.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had appealed to the people to avoid visiting the memorial physically and pay their respects virtually instead.

Harshad Kale, deputy municipal commissioner (DMC), who supervised the preparations at Chaitya Bhoomi, said that they had even reached out to the leaders of various communities to urge their respective community members not to visit the grounds.

Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner, said, “A total of 95,000 people visited the memorial on Monday and the number of people outside was even more. We set up health camps and provided all sanitation facilities around the Bhoomi. Many marshals were also deployed to ensure that people wore masks and followed rules.”

The followers who visited Chaitya Bhoomi on Monday said that a majority of them reached Dadar by Sunday evening and had to spend the night at the Shivaji Park ground. Some of them even staged a protest at Shivaji Park, condemning the BMC for the lack of amenities at the memorial. As the day progressed on Monday, more people started showing up carrying blue flags and pictures of Dr Ambedkar.

Raju Sonar, who travelled to Dadar from Palghar along with five other followers said, “We thought that there will be very few people this year and that we might be sent back. However, there were thousands of people like us who came to pay respect to Babasaheb.”

Later in the day on Monday, a group of volunteers from the All India Panther Sena (AIPS), created ruckus outside Chaitya Bhoomi. They raised slogans and blamed the civic authorities for mismanagement and overcrowding outside the ground. Saurav Sarode, district president of the AIPS, said, “People from different parts of the country come here to pay homage. Every year, the administration used to provide all basic facilities but since last year, everything has stopped. This is really insensitive on their part as people come from faraway places like Karnataka and are not allowed to enter the memorial while VIPs are allowed inside.” However, civic officials rubbished all such claims and said that there were enough facilities available and more mobile toilets were set up in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, dalit leader and great-grandson of Dr B R Ambedkar, Prakash Ambedkar, maintained that Monday’s event was observed peacefully throughout the state. He said that he had already appealed to people not to travel in large numbers for their own safety. He slammed the AIPS protest as a political gimmick.

“The BMC elections are round-the-corner and the members of the outfit created such a nuisance simply to garner attention,” he said.

On Monday morning, Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar, along with deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, state environment minister Aaditya Thackeray, MP Rahul Shewale, and state minister Sanjay Bansode visited the Chaitya Bhoomi along with municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal.