The holy city of Ayodhya is adorned to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. The prime minister will present projects worth thousands of crores to the city, including the Ayodhya Dham railway junction and the airport, to be re-christened as Valmiki airport.

To welcome the prime minister, the sacred city has undergone a transformative change, creating an ambiance of divine grandeur. Elaborate floral decorations, primarily comprising orange and yellow marigolds, are being meticulously arranged around ornamental lamp posts all along the newly-constructed Ram Path.

The Ram Nagari is being decorated with a combination of local and foreign flowers, along with artistic archways, to extend an extraordinary welcome to the prime minister.

Approximately 700-800 skilled artisans from Ayodhya and surrounding districts, as well as contributors from West Bengal, Mathura and Sitapur, are actively engaged in this endeavour. The flowers are being procured from places like Kolkata, Kanpur, Delhi, Bengaluru etc.

To extend a magnificent welcome to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Cultural department is actively preparing various cultural events on the directions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

From the airport through Dharma Path and Ram Path to the railway station, over 1,400 local artistes will present cultural performances on around 40 stages, unfolding Uttar Pradesh’s culture.

The Culture department has roped in Vaibhav Mishra from Ayodhya to blow the ‘conch’ while Kashi’s Mohit Chaurasia will play the ‘damru’. Khajan Singh and Mahipal from Mathura will give a performance on ‘Bam Rasiya’.

Additionally, Mathura’s popular ‘Mayur’ dance will grace several stages. Other artistes like Deepak Sharma, Govind Tiwari and Madhav Acharya, along with many others, will also present their performances with their teams on various stages.

In the sequence of cultural programmes, ‘Ram Nagari’ will be adorned with the colours of various cultures, including ‘Avadhi’, ‘Vantangiya’ and ‘Faruwahi’. Ragini Srivastava from Lucknow and Brajesh Pandey from Sultanpur will enchant the audience with ‘Avadhi’ folk dance, while Sugam Singh Shekhawat from Gorakhpur will introduce the art of ‘Vantangia’ dance. Brj Bihari Dubey from Gorakhpur, Vindhyachal Azaad, Mukesh Kumar ‘Faruwahi’ from Ayodhya and JK Sharma from Jhansi, along with their teams, will present an unparalleled ‘Rai’ folk dance performance.

With the various popular folk dances of Uttar Pradesh, residents of Ayodhya will also be able to witness the cultural presentations of other states, including ‘Been-bansuri’ dance by Ramveer from Palwal and Palinaath from Faridabad, ‘Chakri’ dance by Mamta from Rajasthan, and ‘Baredi’ dance by Manish Yadav from Madhya Pradesh.