The three-day centenary celebration of the ‘Kalita Janagosthi Sanmilan’ of undivided Darrang district of Assam got off to a grand start in Mangaldai on Saturday.
The office bearers of the celebration committee have promised to maintain its non-political character in all spheres of the celebration, even though there is high possibility of different political parties using this ready-made public platform for their own political gain in view of the ensuing general elections in the State.
In reply to a question from Northeast Now, Ramani Kanta Saharia, the president and Kandarpa Kalita, the general secretary of the celebration committee respectively said that the celebration committee is formed from people of different political ideologies but ‘cutting across all our different political ideologies and party affiliations, we are all united under the Sanmilan with a non-political character’.
“We are maintaining a non-political character, we have never made any demand before any political party. We promise to stick to this stand during the days of the celebration too,” the office bearers said.
“We have invited political leaders and they may deliver speech. But they will not be allowed to use this platform for their personal political gain,” the office bearers added.
Meanwhile, the Sanmilan which stated to represent nearly one lakh families of the Kalita community of the undivided Darrang district has organized its centenary celebration in the Dhanpati Kalita, Gangaram Saharia and Sonaram Kalita memorial stage at Managaldai Sanatan Dharmasabha with three-day long variety of programmes from Saturday .
The celebration earlier got off to a start on Saturday morning with the community cleanliness drive, followed by different traditional rituals like lighting of the earthen lamps, recitation of the ‘Bhagawat’, hoisting of one hundred and one organizational flags etc.
The celebration also featured many other social, cultural and academic programmes including two different of open session, academic seminar, cultural rally , cultural evening , exhibition and book fair, felicitation to selected persons of the Kalita community from different fields of excellence, release of books on the historical back ground of the community , centenary souvenir and inauguration of the permanent gate in the district office of the Sanmilan among others.
The organizers which have expected a total turn out of more than 20,000 visitors during the celebration have already formed more than 15 sub-committees and budget of around Rs twenty one lakh for smooth conduct of the function.