BENGALURU: The annual Bengaluru Karaga, one of the city’s oldest festivals celebrated with a lot of fanfare, will be a quiet affair this year. The government permitted the organisers to hold only a “symbolic event” on April 8 in the wake of COVID-19.

“We have given permission. (But) only 4-5 people will symbolically hold the Karaga,” Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa told reporters, adding that all the fairs in the state have been cancelled.

The festival is celebrated by the Vahnikula Kshatriya (Thigala) community on Chaitra Poornima every year in reverence of ‘Adishakti Draupadi.’