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By:

Rajendra Pandharpure

15 April 2025 at 7:55:54 pm

The BJP’s Ganesha Gambit

Pune’s Ganeshotsav has become an enormous civic and political stage, and the ruling party has proved adept at occupying it. Pune: The city’s Ganeshotsav is entering its final phase, but the festival has already demonstrated something beyond its extraordinary crowds and familiar spectacle: the extent to which it has become a political stage. This year, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has left a particularly visible imprint on the festivities, using an event that reaches deep into the city’s...

The BJP’s Ganesha Gambit

Pune’s Ganeshotsav has become an enormous civic and political stage, and the ruling party has proved adept at occupying it. Pune: The city’s Ganeshotsav is entering its final phase, but the festival has already demonstrated something beyond its extraordinary crowds and familiar spectacle: the extent to which it has become a political stage. This year, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has left a particularly visible imprint on the festivities, using an event that reaches deep into the city’s neighbourhoods as an opportunity for public outreach. The political appropriation of the festival has not, however, been without a counter-current. Demands were raised for curbs on noise pollution, loudspeakers and the volume of dhol-tasha performances. The argument was not against Ganeshotsav itself, but for moderation - notably, a complete ban on DJ music and limits on the number of dhol and tasha instruments used by performing troupes. Familiar Troubles The festival’s reality has been rather different. Major roads have been occupied by mandaps. Processions celebrating the arrival of Lord Ganesha have unfolded amid punishing noise. DJ music, while subject to restrictions, has continued. Traffic congestion has become a familiar feature of the festival, with the movement of political leaders adding another layer to the city’s already strained roads. The Peth areas have remained crowded deep into the night. The Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati temple has drawn enormous crowds for darshan from the opening day. From the old city to housing societies and neighbourhood mandals, Ganeshotsav touches virtually every part of Pune. For a political party seeking a direct connection with citizens, few occasions offer such a ready-made network of people, institutions and local influencers. The BJP enters this festival with an unusually formidable organisational base. It has two MPs, seven MLAs and more than 100 corporators in Pune. Murlidhar Mohol, one of the city’s MPs, is a Union Minister of State. Chandrakant Patil is a Cabinet minister in the Maharashtra government, while Madhuri Misal is a Minister of State. The party’s presence also extends into the festival’s organisational architecture. Its influence is visible across numerous mandals, large and small. BJP MLA Hemant Rasane is General Secretary of the Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Sarvajanik Ganpati Trust. Kunal Tilak, a member of Lokmanya Tilak’s family, is a BJP corporator. The political and cultural histories of Pune therefore intersect in ways that are difficult to ignore. The BJP’s senior leadership has also made the most of the occasion. National President Nitin Nabin visited Pune to seek Lord Ganesha’s blessings, while Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the city before and during the festival. Such visits are about more than religious observance. In a festival watched by millions and embedded in the city’s social life, political visibility comes almost automatically. There is also talk in Pune that the BJP provided substantial financial support to Dhol-Lezim troupes and their organisers, with claims that some major mandals received financial backing as well. These claims would require independent verification, but the perception itself points to the depth of the political contest around Ganeshotsav. BJP workers, according to local observers, have also sought to make their presence more conspicuous than that of festivities organised by housing societies. Useful Expedient The festival arrives at a politically useful moment for the BJP. The party has faced disquiet on several fronts. Young people have been agitated over the paper-leak controversy. Broader public dissatisfaction has been voiced over inflation and unemployment, while government policies relating to ethanol and charges associated with UPI transactions have also generated criticism. While a political party can defend a policy in a press conference and advertise its achievements, during Ganeshotsav, its workers can be physically present in neighbourhoods, among processions, mandals, cultural groups and devotees. Politics thus becomes less about argument and more about visibility. That is the BJP’s advantage in Pune. Ganeshotsav, after all, is not simply a sequence of religious rituals. It is an elaborate civic network involving local organisers, volunteers, cultural groups, businesses, residents and political representatives. Whoever has influence over that network acquires a powerful channel of communication with the city. The BJP appears to understand this particularly well. Its strength in Pune’s electoral politics has been reinforced by a presence that extends beyond elections and into the institutions and social spaces that organise public life. The irony is that the very scale of the festival that makes it politically attractive also magnifies the civic costs. The political value of Ganeshotsav and the civic burden it creates are therefore two sides of the same phenomenon. For Pune, the larger question is not whether politics has entered Ganeshotsav. It has done so for decades. The more consequential question is whether the festival’s extraordinary social capital will remain primarily a vehicle for political outreach or whether the same influence can be used to reconcile celebration with the ordinary civic needs of the city. For the moment, the BJP seems to have understood the first proposition better than most.

Ajit Pawar isolated in Mahayuti

Writer: Abhijit Mulye
Abhijit Mulye
Jan 17
4 min read

'Pawar Power' crumbles in urban Maharashtra

Mumbai: The experiment was desperate, and the result, disastrous. The decision by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar to reunite with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) for the Municipal Corporation elections was meant to be a masterstroke to reclaim the family’s bastion in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. Instead, the colossal loss has not only dented the "Pawar" brand but has pushed Ajit Pawar into the most precarious position of his political career.


As the BJP celebrates its expansion across Maharashtra, the defeat raises existential questions for the NCP factions. For Ajit Pawar, the "Dada" of Pune politics, the loss is personal. It signals a diminishing grip on his home turf and drastically reduces his bargaining power within the ruling Mahayuti alliance.


Myth of Unity

The narrative leading up to these polls was one of reconciliation for survival. The story traces back to 2017, when the loss of Pimpri-Chinchwad first sowed the seeds of discord, eventually leading Ajit Pawar to embrace the BJP. Nine years later, facing the saffron juggernaut, the factions attempted a tactical reunion for the civic polls.


However, the voters saw through the cracks. The unity was merely on paper. NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar remained conspicuously absent from the campaign trail. He did not attend the meetings that forged the alliance, nor did he address rallies. Even Working President Supriya Sule limited her involvement to a manifesto release in Pune, avoiding joint rallies with her estranged cousin.


"The message was clear—the heart wasn't in it," remarked a political observer. "The voters of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad realized that a patchwork alliance without the visible blessing of the patriarch was hollow. Unity alone is not enough to counter the BJP’s aggressive urban development narrative."


Double Standards

Ajit Pawar’s strategy of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds has backfired spectacularly. While sitting as Deputy Chief Minister in the state government, he chose to openly level corruption allegations against the BJP during the PCMC campaign. This duality has infuriated his state allies. The backlash was swift and public. BJP State President Ravindra Chavan did not mince words, stating the party “regretted taking Ajit Pawar along.”


This puts Ajit in a vulnerable spot. His faction was already under pressure after two ministers were forced to resign over criminal charges. Now, stripped of his local dominance and viewed with suspicion by the BJP, his leverage is at an all-time low.


Power Struggle

The immediate beneficiary of Ajit Pawar’s decline is likely to be Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Until now, the Ajit Pawar faction had tried to dominate the Shiv Sena (Shinde) within the alliance.


"With these results, the tables have turned," says a Mantralaya insider. "Shinde has held his ground in his strongholds, while Ajit has lost his. We can expect the Shiv Sena to be far more assertive, potentially bogging down the NCP in the state cabinet."


Road Ahead

For Ajit Pawar, the options are shrinking. Unlike his uncle, he does not have the luxury of fluidity. Being in power is his lifeline. Despite the humiliation and the "regret" expressed by the BJP, he is compelled to stay in the government, accepting whatever terms are dictated by the emboldened Fadnavis-Shinde combine.


For Sharad Pawar, the calculus is different but equally grim. The urban voter has moved away, and the "Pawar magic" seems to be fading in the cities. A senior state party leader suggested a radical path forward: a merger with the Congress.


"The latest challenge is keeping the flock together after such a dismal performance," the leader noted. "Age is not on Saheb's side. To ensure the survival of his trusted soldiers and the ideology, merging with the Congress might be the only way to consolidate the opposition vote bank."


All eyes now turn to the Zilla Parishad (ZP) elections scheduled for next month. This will be the true litmus test for the Pawars' existence. While the cities may be lost to the BJP's "Infra Man" image, the rural heartland has traditionally been the NCP's fortress.


If Ajit Pawar fails to deliver in the rural belt, his transformation from a kingmaker to a liability will be complete. For now, the "Devabhau era" has cast a long shadow over Baramati, and the sun seems to be setting on the unquestioned dominance of the Pawars in western Maharashtra.


The Growth Story

  • BJP has won 1,430 seats in the civic polls, up from 1,137 in 2017

  • Shiv Sena won 397 seats across the 29 civic bodies

  • NCP secured 160 seats

  • Shiv Sena (UBT) won 153 seats statewide, a sharp decline from the 501 seats it had won in 2017

  • The NCP (SP) managed only 36 seats, down from 309 in 2017

  • The MNS, which had won 27 seats in 2017, is reduced to 13 this time

  • Smaller parties and independents won a total of 357 seats


“Voters are important, and every political party must continue its efforts. The BJP has achieved significant success, and I congratulate the party for its performance. These civic polls were fought by the BJP under the leadership of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and the other parties had to face defeat. The party will sit and discuss the outcome. We are working in Mahayuti together and our work is going on.”

Ajit Pawar, Chief, NCP


“I will not say that people have rejected dada, rather they have accepted the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, the BJP and us. I had met Ajit Pawar on the voting day (January 15) when he told me that he would not be attending the cabinet meeting.”

Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister


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