More than 10 lakh devotees and visitors from across the country are expected to gather at the historic Mata Tripura Sundari Temple in Udaipur, Gomati district, for a three-day Diwali festival beginning Sunday evening. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha is set to inaugurate the celebrations at the 525-year-old shrine, regarded as one of the 51 Shakti Peethas in India, according to officials.

Scale of the celebrations

The annual festival is billed as one of the largest Diwali gatherings in the entire Northeastern region. Local MLA Abhishek Debroy and Gomati District Magistrate Rinku Lather confirmed that all arrangements have been finalised, with several new initiatives introduced to make this year's edition more expansive.

'We expect more than 10 lakh devotees and visitors including a record number of women from across the country to converge at the three-day festival. It is one of the biggest Diwali festivals in the entire Northeastern region,' Debroy told reporters.

Key attractions and logistics

The inaugural evening on Sunday will feature a spectacular drone show, described by an official of the Information and Cultural Affairs Department as one of the major highlights. A special sand sculpture depicting the Mata Tripura Sundari Temple atop a tortoise — symbolising the shrine's unique religious and cultural identity — will serve as another centrepiece attraction.

Beautifully decorated government exhibition stalls, along with special thematic stalls showcasing Tripura's rich heritage, traditional culture, and indigenous cuisine, have been set up within the temple complex. To manage the surge in passengers, the Northeast Frontier Railway will operate a special train service on Sunday.

Temple's history and recent redevelopment

The Mata Tripura Sundari Temple, located at Udaipur approximately 64 km south of Agartala, was built in 1501 by Maharaja Dhanya Manikya, who ruled the erstwhile princely state of Tripura from 1490 to 1515. It is considered the third most prominent Shakti shrine in eastern India, after the Kali Temple at Kalighat in Kolkata and the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati.

Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the redeveloped temple and offered prayers at the shrine on 22 September 2025, fulfilling what officials described as a long-standing public demand. The redevelopment was carried out under the PRASHAD (Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Heritage Augmentation Drive) scheme of the Union Tourism Ministry, at a total cost of more than ₹54 crore. The Central government contributed ₹34.43 crore, while the Tripura government provided ₹17.61 crore.

Historical context

The temple's roots run deep into the region's royal past. After 517 years of monarchy, the erstwhile princely state of Tripura merged with the Indian Union on 15 October 1949, following an agreement signed between Kanchan Prabha Devi, the then Regent Maharani, and the Governor-General of India. The shrine thus stands as a living thread connecting the state's pre-independence legacy to its present-day cultural identity.

With the redeveloped complex now drawing record footfall projections, the festival signals growing pilgrimage tourism momentum in the Northeast — a trend that the PRASHAD scheme was expressly designed to accelerate.