Covid norms go for toss as Chhath Puja concludes

Devotees across the country offered morning prayers to the rising sun on the last day of Chhath Puja on Saturday.

While many chose to stay back home to offer the "doosra arghya" to the rising sun from temporary water bodies, made specifically for the festival inside their campuses, a large number of people across Jharkhand's Ranchi, Bihar's Patna and Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow, Varanasi and Gorakhpur stuck to the traditional practice of offering prayers at river ghats on the concluding day of the four-day Chhath Puja today.

While people gathered at Lucknow's Gomti riverfront, the Ganga banks in Varanasi and Patna were abuzz with devotees, keeping the COVID-19 protocols at bay.

Among other places, Mumbai, Delhi and Bhubaneswar too witnessed the Chhath morning rituals amid the COVID-19 restrictions.

On the fourth and the last day, devotees pray to the Sun God on the river banks at sunrise and end their fast.

As per the Hindu tradition, devotees, especially in Bihar, Jharkhand and UP, worship the Sun God and his wife Usha to express gratitude and seek their blessings.