The Shree Siddhivinayak Ganpati Temple Trust, Prabhadevi, felicitated Ashish Shelar, minister of cultural affairs, on Wednesday afternoon to thank the state government for declaring Ganesh Mahotsav as the 'State Festival'.
Shelar, who visited the temple to seek Lord Ganesh's blessings, was received by the treasurer of the temple trust, Acharya Pawan Tripathi, who presented him an idol of the dety. Other trustees, including Meena Kamble, Mahesh Mudliyar, Gopal Dalvi, Jitendra Raut, Manisha Tupe, Bhaskar Vichare, executive officer Veena Patil, and deputy executive officer Dr Sandeep Rathod, were present at the ceremony.
The Ganeshotsav festival, in its present form, was started by Lokmanya Tilak in 1893 as a way to mobilise the public for the independence movement. While declaring Ganeshotsav as the state festival, Shelar had said that the celebrations are rooted in the principles of social unity, nationalism, freedom, and cultural pride.
