pune the district administration has cancelled bullock cart races owing to the rising covid casesdistrict collector rajesh deshmukh took the decision on friday night and issued two separate orders for nanoli village in maval tehsil and chinchwodi village in ambegaon tehsilthe races were to be held in these villages for the first time after the supreme court ruling last monthhundreds of farmers had registered their names for the event it would have been difficult for the organisers to manage social distancing and adhere to social distancing norms besides covid positive cases are rising since december 26 considering these aspects we had to cancel the races till further notice deshmukh told toi on saturday the decision did not go down well with organisers villagers and enthusiasts of bullock cart racesformer mp shivaji adhalraon patil the key organiser of chinchwadi village race alleged that the decision was taken politicallyon friday till 8 pm officials from the district administration took all details of the arrangements and permitted us to go ahead with the race however around 11 pm we were told to cancel the event why did the administration take the decision abruptly said former mp adhalrao patil the villagers claimed that food stall vendors would incur huge financial loss because of the cancellation of the race a supreme court bench recently allowed the resumption of bullock cart racing in maharashtra which was banned by the bombay high court in 2017 as it observed that the tradition sport was going on in other states across the country the benchs remarks came after senior advocate mukul rohatgi appearing for the state pointed out that the sport was allowed in states like karnataka and tamil nadu under similar laws passed by the respective state governments the law was stalled by the bombay high court in october 2017 on the basis of a 2014 supreme court judgment which prohibited the use of bulls for any sport or race