top of page

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.

Growing distrust among traders over delivery of spot deals

Writer: Ibrahim Patel
Ibrahim Patel
Jan 19
3 min read

Due to the lack of proper price discovery for silver across the world, a deal for the delivery of 900 kg of silver between the Government of India company "Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited" (SPMCIL), Hyderabad, and a Mumbai-based bullion firm named "Augmont  Enterprise Limited" has run into trouble, creating a huge  flutter in the Mumbai bullion market.

 

A silver bullion dealer from Mumbai said that silver traders across the country—including Mumbai, Rajkot, Jaipur, Agra, Delhi, and Ahmedabad—have landed in serious difficulty. He said that, if a government company creates such issues in silver delivery, then what will happen to the deals of small traders who rely only on a “letter of trust” and whose spot deal deliveries are already jeopardized ?

 

Referring to the details of the deal on December 17, 2025, enquiries were made with leading bullion dealers from the city of Melbourne (Australia) on the status of 'spot deal deliveries' in the local market. 

 

They reveal that deliveries of silver from the (Australian) silver mining companies are not happening on time. Because of this, after accepting money from the investors, they are forced to enter into deals on the condition of delivery after 15 to 20 days.

 

The Mumbai-based silver dealer then countered that if deliveries by a government company itself get stalled in this manner, what will happen to India’s ETF, mutual fund, silver futures, and spot-market “kabala” (non-transferable specific delivery) paper transactions?

 

A senior official of a leading bank, involved in ETF management, said that, so far there has been no major problem with spot silver delivery in India. "However, to protect ETF transactions entered into at recently high prices, we may be compelled to hedge at lease rates with Western countries," he said preferring anonymity.

 

The powerful Indian Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA), Secretary  Surendra Mehta admitted there is a price recovery problem in Mumbai, but it is also true that in the local markets, spot silver is currently being offered at a discount of Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 per kilo. "There is also little likelihood of any immediate solution to such discounts and premiums", he averred.

 

When you consider discounts and premiums of USD 8 to 10 per ounce (31.10347 grams) being quoted between China, Japan, the US, and Europe, how can Indian bullion dealers take the price risk of spot transactions?

 

A source close to Augmont Enterprise, said that, on December 17 the government mint company in Hyderabad had announced an auction of refined silver with purity ranging from .995 to .998.5 touch (carat). Augmont deposited the initial earnest money deposit of Rs 1.16 lakh on December 16 and paid the remaining security deposit amount on December 18. On December 19, the auction for 900 kg of silver was approved in the name of Augmont Enterprise. The final balance payment was to be made by December 27.

 

However, even before that, on December 22, the auction deal was cancelled. Between the initial auction date and the date of cancellation, silver prices increased by Rs 36,000 to Rs 40,000 per kilo. Over the last 52 weeks alone, global spot silver prices had risen by 194 percent.

 

Another market  player said that an amount of Rs.18-20 crore is at stake in this deal. Now, on behalf of its member Augmont Enterprise, the IBJA has requested the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) intervention (on January 9, 2026), to resolve the imbroglio.

 

(The writer is a bullion market expert. Views personal.)

Comments

bottom of page