A devotee prays in front of a chariot in Puri on Wednesday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Bhubaneswar, July 17: The Grand Road of the pilgrim town will again be choc-a-block, as the divine siblings retreat to their abode tomorrow.

Lakhs of devotees will pull the chariots of the trio back to Jagannath temple during the bahuda yatra from Gundicha temple.

The preparations are on the verge of completion and the chariots are set to roll back.

Thousands of devotees have been taking a darshan of the deities on the adapa mandap of the Gundicha temple during the trinity’s stay.

The sandhya darshan, a coveted view of the deities on the last day of their stay at Gundicha, was concluded at 8pm on Wednesday. The chariots were rotated to face Jagannath temple on Monday and all three of them have been checked and repairs have been made wherever required.

“We have checked the chariots and they are ready to carry the deities back. Yet we will get a final check done on Thursday morning,” said Bijay Mohapatra, the chief carpenter of Lord Jagannath’s chariot, Nandighosha.

The temple administration has also made arrangements for the timely execution of rituals with the help of servitors.

“The deities will be woken up with the mangala alati at 4am and the breakfast of khichdi will be served at 6.30am inside the Gundicha temple,” said Laxmidhar Pujapanda, temple public relations officer.

Then they’ll be dressed up with protective attire, Chhenapatta lagi, so they do not get hurt during the pahandi procession. The pahandi will begin by 12 noon while the chariots will be pulled at 4pm. Keeping in view the congregation of lakhs of devotees, more than 104 platoons of police forces would be deployed at various places in the town and on different routes for security and traffic and crowd management on Thursday.

Besides six platoons of rapid action forces, 2,200 home guards and around 600 officers will be deployed at various locations on the days of bahuda yatra as well as suna besha.

Rain followed by waterlogging could be the only spoilsport and delay the rituals.

“We hope it does not rain or there will be a chance of the chariots getting stalled. But over the years that has been a rare incident. Hopefully, the deities reach their destination safe on bahuda day itself,” said Pujapanda.