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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.

How Devendra Fadnavis Single-Handedly Changed the Face of Mumbai

Writer: Parikshit Dhume
Parikshit Dhume
Oct 11, 2025
3 min read

In the last decade, Mumbai has witnessed a transformation that few could have imagined — a metamorphosis from a congested, overburdened metropolis into a city on the move. At the center of this transformation stands one man: Devendra Fadnavis, Maharashtra’s dynamic leader, visionary administrator, and the driving force behind Mumbai’s infrastructure revolution.


As Chief Minister Fadnavis has been the architect of Mumbai’s grand modernisation. His tenure marked the beginning of an unprecedented wave of infrastructure projects — from the Mumbai Metro expansion and Mumbai Coastal Road, to the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train, the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL), and the Navi Mumbai International Airport. Together, these initiatives are redefining the city’s skyline, economy, and global competitiveness.


Metro revolution

Mumbai’s lifeline has always been its railways, but by the early 2010s, it was evident that suburban trains alone could no longer sustain the growing population. Fadnavis took a bold, integrated approach to solve this — fast-tracking and approving multiple metro corridors simultaneously.


Under his leadership, projects that had languished for years finally moved from paper to concrete. The Metro 2A (Dahisar to DN Nagar) and Metro 7 (Dahisar East to Andheri East) lines, long delayed, began rapid construction. He also cleared and launched Metro 3 (Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ) — the city’s first fully underground metro, connecting South Mumbai to the business hubs of Bandra-Kurla Complex and SEEPZ.


With more than 300 km of metro lines planned or under construction, Mumbai’s public transport is being reborn. Once complete, this network will rival those of major world cities, slashing travel times, reducing pollution, and decongesting roads. Fadnavis’ vision was not just about transport — it was about giving Mumbaikars their time and convenience back.


Coastal Road

For decades, the dream of driving along Mumbai’s western coastline without bumper-to-bumper traffic seemed impossible. The Mumbai Coastal Road Project, first conceptualised decades ago, finally found momentum under Fadnavis.


Despite legal, environmental, and bureaucratic hurdles, Fadnavis pushed the project forward with determination. The result: a 29-km world-class expressway stretching from Marine Drive to Kandivali, featuring tunnels under Malabar Hill and beautiful sea-facing promenades.


The Coastal Road is more than just an engineering feat — it is a symbol of modern Mumbai’s ambition. It represents a city reclaiming its space and its future. Once completed, it will dramatically cut commute times, open up new real estate and business corridors, and become an iconic landmark of the city’s transformation.


Bullet train and NMIA

The Mumbai–Ahmedabad Bullet Train Project, India’s first high-speed rail corridor, represents another historic milestone championed by Fadnavis. When critics doubted its feasibility, he saw it as a necessary leap for India’s economic capital.


The project, being executed with Japanese collaboration, is not just about speed — it is about technology transfer, precision engineering, and economic growth. The bullet train will reduce travel time between Mumbai and Ahmedabad to just two hours, boosting trade, investment, and tourism between two of India’s most dynamic regions.


Fadnavis’ unwavering support ensured land acquisition, clearances, and coordination with central agencies. Perhaps no project captures Mumbai’s expansion better than the Navi Mumbai International Airport. Conceived in the 1990s but mired in red tape for decades, it was under Fadnavis’ leadership that the project truly took off.


His government cleared environmental and compensation issues, streamlined approvals, and brought together stakeholders including CIDCO, the Adani Group, and central ministries. Now, with the first phase nearing completion and Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurating its first terminal, Mumbai is set to become a dual-airport city — a global aviation hub on par with London or New York.


Fadnavis model

What sets Devendra Fadnavis apart is not just his ability to launch big projects, but to ensure continuity, coordination, and accountability. He brought a corporate-style efficiency to governance, leveraging technology and transparent monitoring systems.


His leadership transcends party lines — even opponents acknowledge his administrative acumen. Whether it’s the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (the longest sea bridge in India) or the rejuvenation of the eastern waterfront, every project bears his imprint of foresight and precision. Fadnavis often says, “Mumbai doesn’t just need projects; it needs purpose.” That purpose is now visible across the city — in its expanding metro networks, gleaming new roads, tunnels, and terminals. Fadnavis has not just changed Mumbai’s skyline; he has redefined its future.


(The writer is a BJP official based in Thane. Views personal.)

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