Puri: Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Saturday witnessed the Hati Besha of Lord Jagannath and his siblings on the occasion of Snana Yatra on the bathing altar on the Srimandir premises in Puri.
CM Majhi accompanied by his wife, took an EV auto-rickshaw from Jagannath Ballav Parking and entered the shrine through the West Gate of Srimandir in the evening on Saturday. He had the darshan of the Gajanan Besha of the holy trinity.
Chief Secretary PK Jena, SJTA chief administrator Vir Vikram Yadav and senior servitors accorded a warm welcome to the Chief Minister.
Former Brahmagiri MLA Lalitendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra, Pipili MLA Ashrit Pattnayak, and former Puri MLA Jayant Kumar Sarangi accompanied the CM to the shrine.
The CM said that he prayed for the welfare of the State. He also thanked the servitors and people for having a smooth darshan of the deities.
Meanwhile, Law Minister Prithviraj Harichandan also visited the 12th-century shrine and caught a glimpse of the Hati Besha of the deities.
Thousands of devotees thronged to the pilgrim town to have a glimpse of the divine appearance of the lord.
As per the rituals, the Holy Trinity took the sacred bathing on the Snana Bedi with 108 pitchers of aromatic water. Amid moderate rain, devotees got the divine opportunity to have the Gajanan Besha.
The district administration made elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of the rituals. As many as 68 platoons of forces were deployed to ensure smooth darshan of devotees.
