Muhammad Ali Park’s Durga Puja in central Kolkata has entered its 58th year with a smaller roadside installation, as the organisers remain without access to the park where the festival was traditionally held.
The puja, organised by the Muhammad Ali Park Youth Association, is being held on the roadside again this year because of a space shortage. The committee says it has not been able to use the park for the past seven years. Despite the reduced scale and the absence of an elaborate theme, the puja continues to attract visitors, with the pandal located about a minute’s walk from Mahatma Gandhi Road Metro station.
Bimalkumar Jhunjhunwala, president of the puja committee, said the organisers had previously held the festival inside the larger park but had not received access to it for seven years. He said the limited site prevented the committee from creating a larger installation and reduced the scope for decoration.
The organisers said the administration had allotted somewhat more space for this year’s roadside puja than in recent editions. Jhunjhunwala said the additional area allowed the committee to organise the festival more effectively, although it still remained smaller than the puja held inside the park.
The festival continues to draw visitors despite the change in scale. Sougata Das, who travelled from Birati with friends to visit pujas around Sealdah, said Muhammad Ali Park remained important to him because of childhood memories of visiting the site with his father. He described the reduced grandeur but said the association with the puja had not disappeared.
The organisers have attributed the prolonged difficulty over the puja site to the previous government and said they are hopeful that the situation will improve after the change in administration. They said the new government had assured them that they could return to a larger space from 2027, subject to the issue being resolved by next year.
State minister Tapas Roy, who is associated with the club, was appointed chairman of the Youth Association in June after the change in government and attended the inauguration of the pandal. According to the committee president, Roy has assured the organisers that efforts would be made to resolve the site-related complications within the coming year.
For now, the 58-year-old puja remains dependent on a constrained roadside location. Its continued visitor turnout shows that the festival has retained its public pull, while the organisers’ appeal for a larger site keeps the question of access to the traditional park at the centre of its next chapter.
