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.

High-flier who soared the skies, now among the stars

Quaid Najmi
Mar 29
3 min read

Legendary aviator, extreme sports lover, ex-Sheriff of Mumbai and industrialist, Dr. Vijaypat Kailashpat Singhania – former Chairman Emeritus of the Raymonds Group, passed away here late on Saturday.


He was 87 and is survived by his wife Ashadevi, sons Madhupati and Gautam, daughter Shephali Ruia and their respective spouses, and several grandchildren.


Taking the Raymond Group companies, especially the textiles businesses, to new heights and expanding to beyond clothing under his captaincy, Singhania lived life to the full in the skies pursuing his passion for flying. He set/shattered many records and was honoured with Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan over the years.


On Sunday afternoon, Singhania’s funeral procession led by his sons and other kin, started from his home at Haveli on LD Ruparel Marg and wended its way to the Chandanwadi Crematorium where he was cremated with full state honours later.


Top business leaders and politicians including Governor Jishnu Dev Varma, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy CMs Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar, Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Nationalist Congress Party (SP) leaders, aviation enthusiasts and others paid rich tributes to Singhania.


Ease In Cockpit

At ease in cockpit or the chairman’s seat, the soft-spoken Singhania was truly ‘The Complete Man’ – the iconic branding of the apparels giant - when he helmed it for decades, besides wearing multiple hats including as a renowned business honcho photographer, professor and philanthropy, and Sheriff of Mumbai.


Born on October 4, 1938 into a wealthy Marwari business family running one of India’s oldest textile mills, Vijaypat Singhania inherited both, a growing enterprise and the legacy of nationalism with the likes of the Tatas, Birlas, Bajajs and many other business houses – but was a reluctant businessman.


After taking over the Raymond Group at Chairman in 1980 – after diversifying into areas like denim, synthetic, realty, engineering, cement, steel and more – Singhania continued rapid expansion of these ventures, modernizing the production and fortifying brand equity to tackle cut-throat competition in global markets, turning Raymonds, which was bought over by the family in 1944, into an enviable household name.


He stepped down as Chairman in 2000, handed over the baton to his son Gautam Singhania and even transferred his own full 37 pc stake in the group to him – a move which he later regretted, as per his own admission.


First Love

While skilfully handling the nitty-gritties of the corporate world, Singhania also tended to his first love of flying, idolizing American Howard Hughes, the legendary aerospace engineer, aviator, business tycoon, film producer, and Indian magnate, Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, the Father of Indian Aviation, who launched the venerable Air India.


Briefly from 1987, he dabbled in the media by launching a daily, ‘The Indian Post’, but owing to multiple reasons, it was sold to a Gujarat-based publication group but later winded up in 1990.


In 1988, he completed a solo flight of 8,724-kms, in a microlight aircraft from London to New Delhi in 23 days, breaking the previous record of 34 days, and earned a permanent entry in Guinness World Records.


In May 1994, he flew with an American co-pilot Daniel Brown in a Cessna Conquest Aircraft in a "around-the-world-air race" to mark the golden jubilee of International Civil Aviation Organisation and bagged the gold medal. The winning aircraft was displayed for many years at the Nehru Science Centre in Mumbai.


In 2005, he recounted the deadly thrills of his flying life in a book ‘An Angel in the Cockpit: The True Story of a Death Defying Flight Across 5000 miles of Land and Sea’ and later, ‘An Incomplete Life’, his autobiography.


Recognizing his contributions to aviation and high adrenaline sports, the Indian Air Force conferred the rank of Honorary Air Commodore on Singhania, then 67, plus he bagged many more international accolades and honours.


New Record

That year (Nov 2005), Singhania set a world record by ascending to 69,000 feet – or 21.03 kms, nearly three times the height of Mt. Everest - in a hot air balloon, which took off from Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Racecourse, wowing global aviation circles.


The giant balloon was as tall as a 22-storied building, had 18 burners and he travelled in a pressurised aluminium capsule below to protect him when temperatures plummeted to -93C at that staggering height, before descending from space after five hours, and landed in a Nashik village.


He was decorated with the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award for Lifetime Achievement (2001), Padma Bhushan in (2006), and was appointed Sheriff of Mumbai in 2005.


In his later years, his one son became estranged while he was embroiled in several legal battles with the other son, yet he remained resilient, never compromising on the principles of his life and choosing freedom over dependency, till the end.

Comments

bottom of page