Varamahalakshmi festival crowd prompts MCC to shift market to J.K. Grounds for 3 days

Mysore/Mysuru: Anticipating heavy rush of festival shoppers amid the surging COVID cases of late in Mysuru city and district, the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC), which is hell bent on flattening the rising positive cases, today decided to temporarily shift the Flower Market located inside Devaraja Market to a spacious space after people crowded the marketplace this morning.

Even though the auspicious Varamahalakshmi festival is three days ahead, shoppers crowded the city market since early morning forcing the authorities to shift the flower vendors to the J.K. Grounds near city Railway Station so that people can move around freely by maintaining social distance.

MCC Development Officer Nagaraj, who disclosed this to ‘SOM’ said that as the Flower Market was congested, social distancing and other norms could not be followed during festival rush and hence flower vendors have been asked to shift to J.K. Grounds.

As a precautionary measure, the vendors have been asked to conduct business at J.K. Grounds from July 29 to 31, the festival day, said MCC Commissioner Gurudatta Hegde, in a press release and stated that the civic body had to take this decision keeping in mind the safety of a large number of festival shoppers who are expected to visit the market during these three days.

Varamahalakshmi Vrata is a festival to propitiate the Goddess Lakshmi, the consort of Lord Vishnu, one of the Hindu Trinity. Varalakshmi is one who grants boons. It is an important puja performed by womenfolk in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The festival will be celebrated with religious fervour on Friday, 31st July 2020.