Mysuru: Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the city to address a massive rally for the upcoming assembly elections, it is his prospective presence in the city on June 21 – International Yoga Day – that the citizens are more excited about. After creating a world record for the largest gathering of yoga practitioners at a single venue last year, the city is in the race to host the main event of International yoga Day in 2018. It is among the two cities that the authorities have zeroed down on to host the celebrations this year; the other city being Jaipur in Rajasthan.Yoga enthusiasts in the city are hoping that the city, considered the country’s yoga capital, gets the honour of hosting the prestigious event.Following the success of last year’s celebrations in the city, the Karnataka government has already decided to celebrate the state-level celebrations in Mysuru in a grandiose manner. Now, after making it first to a shortlist of four cities to host the International Yoga Day celebrations, the city is now in a battle with Jaipur. Interestingly, more than 2,000 people have already signed up to participate in the celebrations in Mysuru this year.When Modi visited Mysuru, the district MP Pratap Simha and then deputy commissioner D Randeep, had presented him with a booklet, one that chronicled the success of the celebrations in the city in 2017. The booklet mentioned how, with minimal, but important, support from the authorities, Mysuru managed to set the world record for maximum number of participants.World RecordA whopping 55,506 people gathered at a single venue at the Mysuru Race Course, which is spread across 139 acres on June 21, 2017 to send statisticians into a tizzy, as records tumbled and the city entered history books for the largest assemblage of yoga practitioners at one spot. As many as 8,381 students formed a chain link – students from classes VI to those from II PUC – had turned up for the longest chain link yoga event that was organised by the district administration at the Mysuru Palace premises on June 19 last year.After the World Record certificate that hung proudly at the Deputy Commissioner’s office briefly disappeared from its place, many yoga enthusiasts had raised objections. However, it has come to light that the certificate had been removed for leaning work, and has now been replaced.

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