Beyond the expectations of everyone, crossing the mark of Rs 20 lakh since its inception at the auction in 1994, the popular Balapur Ganesh Laddu, this year, was sold at a record-setting price of Rs 24.60 lakh in Hyderabad. It was won by businessman Vangeti Lakshmareddy in a highly competitive auction held at the main junction of Balapur on Friday.
The members of the Ganesh Utsav Committee, which conducted the annual auction for the 29th time, have handed over the gold-coated laddu to the winner Vangeti Lakshmareddy amid cheers from the devotees who gathered in large numbers. Vangeti Lakshmareddy has said that winning the auspicious laddu in the divine palm of Balapur Ganesh is a “once-in-a-lifetime blessing” to him as well as his family members.
It is believed that the Balapur Ganesh Laddu will give good health and prosperity to the winner and their family members. It is a decades-old custom followed by the winner that he will distribute the laddu among his family members, relatives, and friends and some portion of the laddu will be kept in the rice bag and if the winner is a farmer, he will scatter the remaining portion of the laddu in the farm field in all directions. It is believed that by doing so, the farmer will get a good amount of farm produce in future without any crop failure.
Apart from the persons who took part in the earlier auctions, as many as nine bidders took part in this year’s auction. Among them, three are local and the remaining six are non-local persons. The Balapur Ganesh Utsav Committee, which was formed in the year 1980, started the auction of the laddu during the Vinayaka Chaturthi celebrations in 1994. In the past 28 years, the committee gained income in crores of rupees by auctioning the laddu. Last year, the laddu was sold at a price of Rs 18.9 lakh. This year, it sold at a price Rs 5.7 lakh more than the last year’s price. The members of the committee feel happy as the price crossed their expectation of Rs 20 lakh this year.
The auction of the laddu started in 1994 with a price of Rs 450 where Kolanu Mohan Reddy emerged as the winner for the first time. The very next year also, Kolanu Mohan Reddy won the laddu at a price of Rs 4,500. Later, Kolanu Krishna Reddy won the laddu at Rs 18,000 (1996) and at Rs 28,000 (1997). Once again, Kolanu Mohan Reddy won the laddu at a price of Rs 51,000 in 1998. Kallam Pratap Reddy won the laddu at Rs 65,000 in 1999, Kallam Anji Reddy won at Rs 66,000 in 2000, Raghunandan Chari won at Rs 85,000 in 2001 and surprising everyone, the price of the laddu crossed Rs 1 lakh in 2002 when Kandada Madhava Reddy won the auspicious laddu at a price of Rs 1.05 lakh.
Continuing the unexpected trend that paved the way to the auction of laddu at a whopping price at various Ganesh pandals across the twin cities in the new millennium, the price of the Balapur laddu reached Rs 1.55 lakh when Chinguranta Tirupati Reddy received the sacred prasadam from the Utsav Committee members in 2003. The auction price of the laddu crossed Rs 2 lakh in 2004 when Kolanu Mohan Reddy once again won the laddu at Rs 2.01 lakh. Consecutively, Ibrahim Sekhar won at Rs 2.08 lakh (2005), Chinguranta Tirupati Reddy once again at Rs 3 lakh(2006), G Raghunandan Chari once again at Rs 4.15 lakh (2007), Kolanu Mohan Reddy once again at Rs 5.07 lakh(2008), Saritha at Rs 5.10 lakh(2009), Kodali Sridhar Babu at Rs 5.35 lakh(2010) and Kolanu Brothers won the Balapur Ganesh Laddu at Rs 5.45 lakh in 2011.
In 2012, Pannala Govardhan won the laddu at Rs.7.5 lakh and simultaneously former GHMC mayor Teegala Krishna Reddy at Rs 9.26 lakh and Singireddy Jaihind Reddy won the sacred prasadam at a price of Rs 9.5 lakh in 2014. The price of the laddu in the auction held in 2015 crossed Rs 10 lakh for the first time in its history where Kallam Madan Mohan Reddy won the laddu at a bidding price of Rs 10.32 lakh.
Continuing the saga of a new sort of record in the history of the auction of Ganesh laddu across the newly formed Telangana state, one called Skylab Reddy won the laddu at Rs 14.65 lakh in 2016, Nagam Tirupati Reddy got the laddu at Rs 15.6 lakh in 2017, Srinivas Gupta at Rs 16.6 lakh in 2018, Kolanu Ram Reddy won the laddu at Rs 17.6 lakh in 2019.
Due to the deadliest Corona pandemic, the auction of the Balapur Ganesh laddu was cancelled in 2020. But continuing the high price trend, two persons Marri Sashank Reddy and Ramesh Yadav, members of the legislative council in Andhra Pradesh won the laddu at a price of Rs 18.9 lakh in 2021.
This year, beyond the expectation of the devotees as well as the members of the Balapur Ganesh Utsav Committee, the laddu was auctioned at a whopping price of Rs 24.60 lakh where businessman and one of the Utsav Committee members Vangeti Lakshmareddy emerged as the fortunate winner when state ministers Sabitha Indra Reddy and Talasani Srinivas Yadav graced the occasion. Later, the Shobha Yatra of the Balanagar Ganesh Idol was launched where the immersion of the idol took place amid religious fervour at the conclusion of the Yatra.
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