Bandi Sanjay announces free power for 2K Karimnagar Ganesh pandals

Hyderabad: The Karimnagar Municipal Corporation will foot the electricity bill for nearly 2,000 Ganesh pandals set up across the city this Vinayaka Chavithi season, ending a practice in which Union Minister of State for Home Affairs and local MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar personally covered the costs for three years running.

Bandi Sanjay announced the decision during a visit to Karimnagar, telling attendees that the newly Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led corporation was stepping in now that the party holds the mayor’s post. He said organisers should set up new pandals without disrupting traffic or inconveniencing residents, and framed the festival as an opportunity to strengthen ties between young people and their cultural roots.

The announcement comes months after the BJP wrested control of the Karimnagar Municipal Corporation from the Congress and the BRS earlier this year. During the same visit, the minister laid the foundation stone for CC road and drainage works in Sriramnagar Colony, part of Vidyanagar’s 21st Division, funded through the corporation’s general funds. He was accompanied by Mayor Kolagani Srinivas, Deputy Mayor Sunil Rao and Municipal Commissioner Praful Desai, according to local reports.

The Karimnagar push comes days after Bandi Sanjay was dropped as a BJP national general secretary in a broader organisational reshuffle announced by party president Nitin Nabin on August 17, part of a rejig that also removed Amit Malviya and brought back Smriti Irani. Despite losing his central party role, Bandi Sanjay has kept up a visible presence in his home constituency, positioning the corporation’s welfare and infrastructure announcements as evidence of his continued clout in Karimnagar.

Telangana’s state government has separately extended free power to community pandals during Ganesh Chaturthi and Durga Navratri in recent years, a policy the BJP has previously demanded when it was in the opposition. Local festival committees have welcomed the Karimnagar corporation’s move, though the scale of the broader development spending the minister referenced at the event could not be independently confirmed.