Queen's Baton to enter Delhi today

Thu, Sep 30

The Queen's Baton Relay will enter New Delhi at 8 am on Thursday, having covered 20,000 km through all 28 Indian states and seven Union Territories. On Wednesday, the Baton reached Gurgaon with Beri MLA Dr Raghubir Singh Kadian handing it over to Deputy Commissioner Rajender Kataria near Farrukhnagar at 1 pm.

The excitement was evident as the Baton entered rural Gurgaon with two Shera look-alikes welcoming it at Sultanpur village. "We had seen Shera on TV," giggled 13-year-old Akaash, one of the village boys.

An hour later, the Baton was at Nehru Stadium in the city, where the DC carried the baton in an special open vehicle along with team leader Lt General Raj Kadian. Haryana Finance Minister Capt Ajay Singh Yadav, MoS Agriculture and Cooperatives Sukhbir Singh Kataria and DGP Ranjeev Dalal were waiting at the stadium to pose next to the Baton. The Deputy Commissioner's children, Aditi and Sauhard, had come in from Chandigarh for the event and posed for pictures holding the Baton as thousands of kids from local schools looked on from a distance. Around 4 pm, the Deputy Commissioner ran with the Baton till the nearby Chintpoorni Temple from where it went to many important spots in the city, covering 21 km in all, before being taken to Dhancheri Tourist Complex located near the Delhi-Gurgaon toll plaza, where it will be kept for the night.

On Thursday, the Baton will be brought to the CWG Organising Committee headquarters at Jantar Mantar, where at an official launch in the afternoon, OC chairman Suresh Kalmadi will hand it over to Lieutenant-Governor Tejendra Khanna. The L-G will then pass on the Baton to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

The OC headquarters will organise cultural programmes between 7 and 8 pm till October 2 to mark the Baton's stay there. On Friday, the baton is likely pass through Vijay Chowk, India Gate, Teen Murti Bhawan, Qutub Minar and Lotus Temple while on Saturday it will be taken to Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib, St Columba's School and CWG Village. The QBR's 1.9 lakh-km journey across 71 countries will culminate on October 3 at the Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium before the opening ceremony.