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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.

The BJP’s urban playbook

Writer: Akhilesh Sinha
Akhilesh Sinha
Jan 17
3 min read

Mumbai’s civic verdict which saw the Thackerays’ being dethroned signals a national turn from dynasty to delivery, unsettling India’s regional satraps

New Delhi: The election result to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the richest civic body in India, which saw the fall of the Thackeray clan has not merely reshaped Maharashtra’s politics but sent tremors across India’s federal map.

The BJP–Shinde Shiv Sena alliance secured 118 of the 227 seats, ending the Thackeray family’s 25-year grip over the city’s civic empire. The BJP alone won 89 wards, polling 11,79,273 votes, which translated into 45.22 percent of the winners’ vote share and 21.58 percent of the overall turnout. This surpassed its 2017 tally of 82 seats and marked the party’s most decisive urban triumph in western India.


Institutional Backbone

For a quarter of a century, the BMC was the institutional spine of Thackeray power, funding patronage networks and reinforcing a politics rooted in kinship and cultural assertion. That edifice has now cracked. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) slumped to 65 seats, a collapse that reflects not merely factional splits but a deeper exhaustion with a style of politics that seemed increasingly indifferent to everyday civic failures. Devendra Fadnavis’ Mahayuti alliance tapped into this frustration by projecting governance over political pedigree.


What makes Mumbai’s verdict resonate nationally is its timing. Almost simultaneously, the BJP staged a breakthrough in Kerala’s local elections, capturing 50 of 101 wards in Thiruvananthapuram and installing V.V. Rajesh as mayor - its first in the state capital in 45 years. The Left Democratic Front was reduced to 29 wards and the Congress-led United Democratic Front to 19. In two very different cities, voters appeared to reward a narrative of administrative competence and anti-corruption over ideological lineage. The BJP, long caricatured as a north-Indian force, has begun to nationalise its local-body playbook.

The lesson from Mumbai is stark. Urban electorates, especially the middle class, are becoming less sentimental and more transactional. For over two decades, the BMC functioned as a symbol of Marathi pride and familial continuity. Yet when potholes and floods became annual rituals, pride curdled into impatience. The electorate’s punishment was swift. Such behaviour suggests a maturing urban voter, willing to dispense with entrenched elites when delivery falters.


Wider Implications

These signals are being keenly watched in West Bengal, which heads to a crucial Assembly poll in April this year. Mumbai’s outcome arms the BJP with a tested template to challenge Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in urban centres such as Kolkata. The party’s 2021 assembly performance had already demonstrated its urban appeal. Civic failures, scandals and a fraying Congress–Left understanding offer further openings. Welfare schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar continue to secure rural loyalty for Banerjee, but cities are less forgiving. The BJP’s experience in Mumbai suggests that competence, and not confrontation, may be the sharper weapon.


The ripple effects extend southwards. Tamil Nadu’s 2026 contest pits the ruling DMK against an opposition that may yet coalesce. The AIADMK, weakened but still the principal challenger, is flirting with a renewed alliance with the NDA. Its 20 percent vote share in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, combined with the BJP’s 11 percent could, on paper, threaten M.K. Stalin’s coalition, which polled around 27 percent. A swing of 5 percent would be enough to imperil the DMK in urban centres such as Chennai, particularly amid persistent allegations of graft. Yet, internal feuds within the AIADMK and the rise of actor Vijay’s political outfit dilute opposition unity, limiting the BJP’s reach despite its urban pitch.


Kerala’s verdict reinforces the broader pattern. Anti-corruption appeals and development-first messaging have shown themselves to be portable, even in states long resistant to the BJP. Still, cultural and social divides impose limits. The party’s advances are incremental rather than transformative. Regional heavyweights such as the TMC and DMK may suffer morale shocks, but they retain deep-rooted organisational strength and emotive narratives.


Even so, Mumbai’s civic upheaval marks a turning point. It suggests that India’s urban voters are increasingly willing to judge parties as service providers rather than cultural custodians. For the BJP, the BMC offers a replicable model: alliances stitched pragmatically, campaigns anchored in delivery, and an appeal tailored to middle-class anxieties. For the opposition within the I.N.D.I.A. bloc, it is a warning. Welfare populism without administrative credibility may no longer suffice.

 


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