Celebs pack Lalbaugcha Raja as Ganeshotsav fills Mumbai
Ranveer Singh, Shilpa Shetty, Riteish and Genelia, Ektaa Kapoor and Sidharth Malhotra join the darshan queue.
Mumbai's Lalbaugcha Raja pandal drew another wave of film celebrities during Ganesh Chaturthi this week.
Ranveer Singh visited in a white kurta-pyjama, offered prayers, greeted fans, and waved from his SUV as he left. Videos of the stop circulated on social media. Riteish Deshmukh and Genelia Deshmukh also came together. Shilpa Shetty arrived in an ivory and maroon printed saree. Producer Ektaa Kapoor and actor Sidharth Malhotra visited ahead of promotions for The Vvaan.
Lalbaugcha Raja remains one of the city's busiest Ganeshotsav destinations. The idol was first installed in 1934 by local fishermen and traders after markets shut, and it later became known as Navsacha Ganpati among devotees who wait hours for darshan. Lakhs visit each year, and the celebrity lane is only one slice of a much larger public queue.
Ranveer is shooting the film Pralay and was last seen in Dhurandhar: The Revenge, which India Today said crossed Rs 1,800 crore worldwide. He and Deepika Padukone are expecting their second child. For Kapoor and Malhotra, the stop doubled as a quiet launch ritual before the trailer cycle for The Vvaan.
For a lot of Indian readers, Ganeshotsav is the culture story of the week, and Lalbaugcha Raja is where celebrity, faith and Mumbai crowd energy meet on camera.
These visits are not policy. They are still news in the soft sense: they show which faces the festival claims, and they travel further on Instagram than most film trailers. The pandal's history as a neighbourhood workers' idol also explains why the queue never shrinks even when stars show up. In a city that runs on spectacle, the mandal remains both a religious site and a seasonal stage.
Darshan continues through the festival days, and more celebrity stops are likely before visarjan. On the film side, watch The Vvaan trailer push from Kapoor and Malhotra, and Ranveer's Pralay schedule. The larger Mumbai story remains crowd management around the city's biggest mandals for the rest of the festival, and whether the darshan lines stay orderly as the immersion days approach.