3-day long Ellora-Ajanta International Festival begins on Feb 25

- ‘Purvarang’ curtain-raiser of the festival organised on Feb 12.

Lokmat News Network

Aurangabad:

The district collector Astik Kumar Pandey today shared the details on the beginning of the three-day-long Ellora Ajanta International Festival 2023 at Sunehri Mahal from February 25 to 27.

The festival is jointly organised by the district administration, festival organising committee and the state’s Directorate of Tourism (DoT).

Pandey said, “the festival is a platform to promote and propagate Indian art, dance, literature-culture and life. This year, internationally acclaimed artists will perform classical, semi-classical vocal, dance and other forms of performing arts during the festival. The dignitaries who will be presenting their extravaganza performances include Ustad Rashid Khan, Ustad Shujaat Khan, Mahesh Kale, Ravi Chari, Shivmani, Vijay Ghate, Sangeeta Mazumdar and Shankar Mahadevan.”

A pre-event concert ‘Purvarang’

The organisers have decided to organise a pre-event concert ‘Purvarang’ (as a curtain raiser to the Ellora Ajanta International Festival) at Sant Eknath Rang Mandir (Osmanpura) on February 12 at 6.30 pm. Noted danseuse Soniya Parchure and her group will perform a ballet dance. It will be followed by ‘Sanj Amrutachi’, a musical event of Marathi, Hindi and Sufi songs presented by Shalmali Sukhtankar, Ashish Deshmukh, Mandar Apte, and Madhuri Karmarkar. The event will be compered by Dhanashree Damale.

The union minister of state for Railways Raosaheb Danve and the union minister of state for Finance Bhagwat Karad will inaugurate the event on Sunday, while the guardian minister Sandeepan Bhumre will preside over. The state minister of Agriculture Abdul Sattar and minister of Cooperation and Social Justice Atul Save will be the co-presidents, and the leader of the opposition in the Legislative Assembly Ambadas Danve will be the chief guest. Meanwhile, the guests of honour included MP Imtiyaz Jaleel, MLC Satish Chavan, MLC Vikram Kale, MLAs Haribhau Bagade, Sanjay Shirsaat, Pradeep Jaiswal, Prashant Bamb, Udaysingh Rajput and Ramesh Bornare. The managing director of CIDCO (Mumbai) Sanjay Mukherjee will also grace the cultural event.

Meanwhile, the state commissioner (Right to Services) and honorary advisor to the festival committee) Dilip Shinde, district collector (and the chairman of the festival organising committee) Astik Kumar Pandey and director (DoT) B N Patil have appealed to the citizens to attend the Purvarang event in large numbers.

The press conference was also attended by the commissioner of police (CP) Nikhil Gupta, municipal commissioner Abhijeet Chaudhari, Dilip Shinde, superintendent of police (SP) Manish Kalwaniya, Zilla Parishad CEO Vikas Meena and others.