Secunderabad Lashkar Bonalu To Begin From July 9; Arrangements Afoot 

Hyderabad: The officials have geared up to make arrangements for a smooth celebration of the annual Secunderabad Ujjaini Mahankali Jatra, popularly known as Lashkar Bonalu from July 9.

Minister for Animal Husbandry Talasani Srinivas Yadav held a meeting on Wednesday and reviewed about the arrangements with officials from various departments.

City Mayor Bonthu Rammohan, GHMC Commissioner Janardhan Reddy, City Police Commissioner Mahender Reddy and others attended the meeting.

Bonalu had been declared as the state festival by the chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao after the formation Telangana. The festival starts on the first Sunday of Ashadam at the Durga temple in Golconda and then the two-days festival would commence from in Ujjaini Mahankali temple at Secunderabad on the second Sunday. The closure of the festival comes with a mammoth procession from Matheswari temple of Lal Darwaja in Old City on the third Sunday.

The women offer ‘bonalu’ consisting of cooked rice, jaggery, curd, turmeric water which are brought in steel and clay pots to the temples. People believe that Ujjaini Mahakali temple was constructed in 1,813 by Suriti Appaiah, who was a bearer in the Indian military. He was on a mission to Ujjain town where thousands had died in the outbreak of cholera. He is said to have visited Mahakali temple in Ujjain and took a vow that if his entire platoon is saved, they will install an idol of the goddess in Secunderabad.