Pramoda Devi Wadiyar
In a release, she said police personnel and their family members breached norms by crowding and posing in front of the golden howdah to take selfies and photographs, calling it a display of indiscipline and dereliction of duty. She said the howdah, the family’s private property, had been given to the police commissioner on an undertaking that precautions would be taken to prevent damage. Despite duty passes being issued to specified people, unauthorised personnel from govt departments gathered around it, violating the undertaking, she alleged. She accused DCP (L&O) Harsha Primvada of manhandling her representatives who were officially assigned to ensure the howdah’s safe return.
Mysuru: Mysuru Royal family matriarch Pramoda Devi Wadiyar on Sunday expressed her disappointment over the conduct of Dasara 2026, alleging that a lack of coordination among govt departments and repeated security lapses led to interference with the royal family’s religious rituals during the private Dasara festival. For the first time in 45 years, she alleged, the family was not informed in advance about the elephant selected to carry the howdah, forcing her to approach the deputy conservator of forests five days before the event to obtain the information, causing unnecessary stress.
Referring to a Karnataka high court order allowing the family to approach it if customary rituals were obstructed, she said she had refrained from doing so year after year.