Maratha Mandali Immerses Lalbaug Raja Replica at Lakshmikund After Five-Hour March

Shri Kashi Maratha Ganesh Utsav Samiti on Friday, 18 September 2026, took out the visarjan procession of its Lalbaug Raja replica from Sherwali Kothi in Thathei Bazaar to Lakshmikund in the Laxa belt, covering about two kilometres in roughly five hours. The idol had been worshipped for five days at the kothi after Ganesh Chaturthi. Reports of the march and immersion circulated through Saturday morning across the old city.

Devotees brought the idol from the Thathei lane to the main road, seated it on a flower-decked rath after puja, and moved the procession from Nichibagh onward with an 80-member Shivgarjana dhol-tasha pathak from Maharashtra. Marathi women in traditional dress danced along the route while chants of “Ganpati Bappa Morya” mixed with “Har Har Mahadev” and historical victory calls associated with Chhatrapati Shivaji. The column paused at Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham for homage before continuing through Godowlia toward Lakshmikund.

At the kund, aarti was offered and the idol was lifted from the rath onto shoulders for immersion. Samiti office-bearers present included patron Santosh Patil, president Anand Suryavanshi and general secretary Anna More, along with Hanuman Shinde, Manik Rao Patil, Suhas Patil, Tanaji Patil, Hanmant Rao More, Chandra Shekhar Shinde, Ajit Patil and others named in the committee’s procession list. This desk does not invent crowd estimates beyond the described two-kilometre, five-hour pace and the 80-member pathak.

Banaras has long hosted Marathi mandalis whose Ganesh calendars mirror Mumbai’s public sarvajanik style even while immersion happens in a local kund rather than the sea. Friday’s Lalbaug Raja replica march is that cultural bridge in concrete form: Maharashtra’s dhol-tasha grammar on Kashi’s lane geometry, ending at Lakshmikund instead of Chowpatty.

For shopkeepers along Thathei–Godowlia–Laxa, the practical stamp was a slow-moving rath and sustained percussion for an afternoon and evening. For the samiti, the visarjan closed a five-day home puja cycle and carried the customary invitation for the idol’s return next year. For the wider city, it was one more immersion thread in a fortnight already marked by multiple Ganesh calendars — distinct from river rescues or crime briefs filed the same week.

Cultural copy needs no manufactured miracle stories. The verified line is enough: a Lalbaug Raja replica housed at Sherwali Kothi moved on Friday from Thathei Bazaar to Lakshmikund in a two-kilometre, five-hour procession led by an 80-member dhol-tasha troupe under Shri Kashi Maratha Ganesh Utsav Samiti, with Vishwanath Dham homage on the way and immersion at the kund. Saturday’s Banaras reading is the after-echo of that march.

Immersion at Lakshmikund rather than a Ganga ghat also kept the Maratha calendar inside a controlled kund geometry familiar to Laxa residents. The five-hour pace left time for repeated aarti stops and pushpa-varsha along Godowlia, which is why shopfronts on the route experienced a long percussion afternoon rather than a quick pass-through.