Berhampur, July 19: The chariots at the Dharakote and Surangi temples were pulled today. According to tradition, the car festival takes place one day late in these two places. The return journey of the deities, known as bahuda yatra, is also observed a day late.

Though the deities were moved to the chariot yesterday, they were pulled through the main thoroughfare of the city today. The car festival in Dharakote is significant because Gitanjali Devi, the 18-year-old queen of the former Dharakote estate performs the chhera pahanra (symbolic sweeping) of the chariot. "This is the sixth time that I am performing the rath yatra rituals as the Raja Saheba. I don't feel shy to perform services for the Lord at a public place", she said.

The mukti mandap pandit sabha (the body of scholars) at the Jagannath temple in Puri had asked Sulakhyana Gitanjali Devi to perform the rituals. She was crowned the symbolic queen of Dharakote in 2010 after the death of her father, King Kishore Chandra Singh Deo.

There is fair bit of history at the Jagannath temple in Dharakote. Built by King Jaysingh during his reign from 1732 to 1758, the tradition of rath yatra began since then.

The delayed rath yatra in Dharakote was observed to facilitate the royal family members to participate in the Puri rath yatra and come back to their kingdom in Berhampur in a day's time, sources from the royal family said.

At Surangi, the raj purohit (the royal priest) Ranjan Kumar Das performed the chhera pahanra on Saturday. Hundreds of people, including the tribal villagers from the neighbouring villages in Andhra Pradesh, gathered today to pull the chariot.

Although the exact reason behind the one-day delay in pulling the chariot at Surangi is not recorded, Anant Kumar Kar, a research scholar on the Jagannath cult in Ganjam said: "Perhaps the king was forced to postpone the rath yatra celebrations at Surangi by a day as everyone went to participate in the more popular festivities at neighbouring Jarada in Chikiti."

"During the earlier days, the chariots were pulled by elephants as there were not enough devotees left at Surangi to pull them. But the practice was abandoned later and the devotees took part in pulling the chariots. Possibly the pulling of chariots was moved by a day so that more people could participate," said Kar.