Balapur Ganesh laddu auctioned for Rs. 24.60 lakhs

HYDERABAD: The most popular auction, the Balapur Ganesh ‘laddu’ prasadam, brought in a record-breaking Rs. 24.60 lakh on Friday, the highest ever in the last 28 years after it was first auctioned for Rs. 450 in 1994.

The annual auctioning of the Balapur laddu, also known as 'golden laddu', this time weighing 21 kilograms, was won by Vengeti Laxma Reddy of VLR Builders after a fierce bidding war between nine participants, including two Balapur residents. On Friday, the bid started at Rs. 1,11,111 and picked up pace to close at the record-breaking figure.

This year's sale brought in an extra Rs. 5.7 lakh than it did the year before. In the 2021 auction, Ramesh Yadav, YSRCP leader from Kadapa, and Marri Shashank Reddy, COO of Abacus Overseas Education Pvt Ltd, bought the laddu for `18.9 lakh.

“I've been competing in this bid for the previous 20 years, and this year I was successful in taking the laddu home,” said an elated Vengeti Laxma Reddy. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the organisers did not auction the laddu in 2020. The famed laddu was gifted to Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao.

The tradition of auctioning the laddu has continued since 1994 and grown in significance year after year. Businessmen and politicians compete for the bid each year as it is believed to bring prosperity to the winner. The winners not only share portions of laddu with their family and friends, but they also scatter the remainder across their homes, businesses, and farms.

Kolan Krishna Reddy, a native of the village of Balapur, was the winning bidder in the first laddu auction in 1994, purchasing it for Rs. 450 and was the successful bidder for five years in a row. The majority of the auctions were participated by the Kolanu family, which also placed the winning bid in 10 of the 27 auctions staged thus far.

The Ganesh immersion procession begins with the annual laddu auction in Balapur and traverses through numerous parts of the city until arriving at Hussain Sagar lake in the centre of the city. Prior to the start of the bid here at the Balapur Ganesh Utsav samithi's pandal, Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav, Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy, and Dr. Bhagvanth Rao of the Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samiti addressed the crowd.