‘Aani' car festival of Swami Nellaiyappar Temple held with traditional fervour
After the celebration started with flag-hoisting on June 30, the car festival was held on Tuesday in which Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker M. Appavu, Minister for Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment P.K. Sekar Babu, Mayor G. Ramakrishnan, District Collector R. Sukumar, Corporation Commissioner Monika Rana, Commissioner of Police, Tirunelveli City, Santosh Hadimani, MP C. Robert Bruce, MLAs Ruby R. Manoharan, M. Abdul Wahab and Nainar Nagenthiran participated.
Since the ropes got snapped during the car festival last year, even as the devotees were drawing the car, six new ropes, costing ₹6.50 lakh, had been fitted in the cars of Swami Nellaiyappar and Gandhimathi Ambal this year. The newly made Chandikeswarar car, built at the cost of ₹59 lakh, added more colour to the celebration this year. The recently made wooden horses had been fitted in cars of Swami Nellaiyappar, Vinayagar, Subramaniyar and Chandikeswarar and wooden Bramma and 'yaazhi' sculptures were fitted in the Gandhimathi Ambal car this year.
As the wheels of Vinayagar car were old and hence been weak, new wheels were fitted at ₹5.54 lakh and the new colourful clothes, costing ₹9.92 lakh, had been used to decorate the cars of Swami, Ambal, Vinayagar, Subramaniyar and Chandikeswarar.
While the Corporation had re-laid the Car Street roads, the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation had replaced the power cables crossing these roads with underground cabling system this year and hence the power supply could be restored immediately after the cars crossed every street.
Police had made elaborate security arrangements around the shrine and effected traffic diversions to facilitate the free movement of devotees in and around the temple. The entire crowd was being monitored constantly from the police control room as CCTV cameras had been fitted afresh along the Car Streets.
Besides setting-up water booths along the Car Streets, health posts had been created to attend the devotees who suddenly fell sick due to exhaustion and heat.
The district administration had declared local holiday for the car festival.
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