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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.

GM held for 'misappropriation' of Rs 122 crore

Correspondent
Feb 16, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Feb 18, 2025

New India Cooperative Bank

misappropriation

Mumbai: The Mumbai police on Saturday arrested Hitesh Mehta, General Manager and Head of Accounts of the New India Cooperative Bank, for allegedly misappropriating Rs 122 crore from the bank, officials said.


Mehta was placed under arrest by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the city police after being questioned for more than three hours, an official said.


He was called to record his statement before the probe agency at its south Mumbai office in connection with the case registered against him and others, he said.


Mehta will be produced before a local court on Sunday, the police official added.


The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday superseded the cooperative bank's board for a year and appointed an administrator to manage its affairs. A day prior to that, it imposed several restrictions on the lender, including on withdrawal of funds by depositors, citing supervisory concerns emanating from the recent material developments in the bank, and to protect the interest of its depositors.


Acting Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Devarshi Ghosh, on Friday lodged a complaint against Mehta and others at the Dadar police station in central Mumbai for alleged misappropriation of the bank's funds, the police said.

"Based on the complaint, the police registered a case in the wee hours of Saturday, which was then transferred to the EOW for investigation," another official said.


As per the complaint, Mehta along with other associates hatched a conspiracy and embezzled Rs 122 crore from the safes of Prabhadevi and Goregaon offices of the bank, he said.


A case under the BNS sections 316 (5) (criminal breach of trust by public servants, bankers, and others in positions of trust), 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) was registered, he said. During the investigation, it came to light that the misappropriation of the funds had started soon after the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. While the accused embezzled Rs 112 crore from the safe in Prabhadevi, Rs 10 crore were siphoned off from the Goregaon branch, he said.


ED conducts searches in bank fraud case

The Enforcement Directorate has carried searches at 12 locations in Mumbai as part of its probe into a Rs 142-crore bank fraud case, the agency said on Saturday. ED has initiated a probe based on an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against M/s Rialto Exim Private Limited, M/s Pushpak Bullion Private Limited, Chandrakant Patel and others under the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act. According to a release by the agency, it carried out searches on Thursday and uncovered details of immovable assets and movable assets (bank funds) and various other “incriminating” documents that were seized or frozen. Those named in the case are accused of causing wrongful the Central Bank of India and Bank of India a loss of Rs 142.72 crore. M/s Rialto Exim Private Limited is linked with Pushpak Group and was involved in circular transactions with various related entities of Pushpak without any actual trade or business for financial manipulation, the release said.


ED has discovered transactions of over Rs 500 crore between M/s Rialto Exim and other Pushpak Group entities. Transactions with various Dubai-based dummy entities and the purchase of a mine in the US by Pushpak Group's foreign entity were also uncovered during the searches and investigation, the release said.


The anti-money laundering agency has also come across more than Rs 84 crore of cash deposits, during demonetisation, in entities related to Pushpak Group. Further investigation is underway, the release added.

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