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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.

Price Spiral

Correspondent
May 14
2 min read

With the renewed conflict involving Iran sending tremors through global energy markets, India once again stares at creeping inflation. Oil prices are rising, the rupee is under pressure and the costs of everyday essentials from milk to transport, are beginning to climb steadily. The question now is no longer whether the geopolitical crisis in West Asia will affect India, but how deeply it will hit the ordinary Indian household.


While the government has not announced any fuel hike yet, the direction of policy suggests that Central government is preparing for a prolonged period of global economic stress triggered by the renewed Iran crisis and volatility in energy markets. The signals are unmistakable. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent appeal for austerity, fuel conservation and restrained spending was no mere rhetorical flourish. India’s vulnerability is structural. The country imports more than 85 percent of its crude oil requirements. Any geopolitical disruption in West Asia rapidly feeds into India’s inflation cycle and fiscal calculations.


For now, oil marketing companies have absorbed much of the pressure. But that cannot continue indefinitely. Even the Reserve Bank of India governor has indicated that prolonged conflict could eventually force retail fuel prices upward. Fuel inflation often behaves like a silent tax on the poor and middle classes. Every truck carrying vegetables, milk, medicines or cement becomes more expensive to operate. The additional cost eventually lands on the consumer’s plate. That process has already begun.


Amul and Mother Dairy raising milk prices simultaneously is a broader symptom of mounting input costs across the economy. The increase of Rs. 2 per litre may appear modest to affluent consumers. For lower-income households already grappling with elevated food prices, it matters significantly. The sugar export ban offers another clue into the government’s thinking. Export restrictions are typically emergency tools used when policymakers fear domestic shortages and rising retail inflation. The government clearly believes that preserving local supplies is now more important than benefiting from higher international sugar prices. Likewise, the doubling of import duties on gold and silver is an unofficial sign of nervousness about India’s import bill swelling if oil prices remain high for months. There is a political dimension, too. Inflation corrodes governments more steadily than opposition parties do. India’s leadership understands that rising prices generate public frustration faster than abstract geopolitical arguments about West Asia or shipping corridors. The squeeze is increasingly visible in urban India. Families are postponing discretionary purchases, reducing travel and reconsidering spending patterns. Airlines like Air India are discussing route changes owing to rising aviation turbine fuel costs. Schools and institutions are being nudged to conserve electricity. The greater risk is something subtler but politically potent: a prolonged erosion of purchasing power. Growth may continue on paper even as ordinary citizens feel steadily poorer.


India’s economic weather has unmistakably shifted. The real question is how much pain the Indian consumer can absorb.

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