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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 Hidden Price of Privacy

Writer: Divyaa Advaani 
Divyaa Advaani 
Jan 30
3 min read

There comes a point in a founder’s journey when success stops feeling celebratory and starts feeling weighty. The business is stable, the numbers are respectable, and the world sees achievement. Yet privately, many founders feel an unspoken exhaustion — the quiet awareness of what it took to get here. Years consumed by work. Relationships that adjusted without consent. Personal milestones postponed indefinitely. For some, this reality creates a strong instinct to retreat rather than reveal.


“I don’t want the world to know my story,” a founder once said. Not out of secrecy, but self-preservation. His journey was hard-won. The sacrifices were deeply personal. And he believed that speaking about them would either invite judgement or reduce the seriousness with which he was taken. The company could be marketed. The individual, he felt, should remain in the background. This belief is far more common than it appears.


Across industries, many accomplished entrepreneurs still operate on an older framework of branding promote the company, protect the person. Let the organisation speak. Let the results do the talking. Personal narratives, they believe, blur authority or invite unnecessary scrutiny. In an age where oversharing has become a currency, their resistance feels sensible. But personal branding today is not about exposure. It is about precision.


There is a crucial difference between being an open book and being intentional with one’s story. Personal branding does not require founders to relive their hardships publicly or convert sacrifice into spectacle. It requires discernment — the ability to decide what adds context and what remains private.


The problem begins when founders confuse discretion with disappearance.


In today’s business landscape, people are no longer convinced by outcomes alone. They want to understand the thinking behind decisions, the values behind leadership, and the temperament behind authority. When that context is missing, credibility remains intact — but connection weakens. The brand becomes functional, not magnetic.


This is where many founders unknowingly stall their influence. They are respected, but not deeply sought out. Trusted, but not emotionally anchored. Successful, but not truly differentiated.


Personal branding, when done right, bridges this gap. It allows founders to communicate who they are without surrendering who they protect. It shifts the focus from “what I endured” to “how I think.” From personal pain to professional perspective. From biography to belief system. This distinction matters.


Founders who remain completely silent often find themselves misunderstood. Their restraint is interpreted as distance. Their privacy reads as opacity. Over time, this affects how teams engage, how partners relate, and how markets respond. Growth continues, but influence plateaus.


Ironically, strategic personal branding often benefits founders internally before it does externally.


When leaders consciously shape their narrative, they reclaim authorship over their identity. They are no longer defined solely by numbers or outcomes. They begin to articulate their journey in a way that feels dignified, contained, and aligned. This brings clarity — and often relief. A sense that their years of sacrifice have meaning beyond financial success.


For organisations, the impact is equally powerful. A founder with a clear personal brand strengthens trust at every level. Teams align faster. Clients commit sooner. Conversations move beyond transactions into long-term relationships. The business gains not just visibility, but credibility with depth.


The need of the hour is not more storytelling. It is responsible storytelling. Founders must learn where to draw the line — what to share, what to shield, and what to shape deliberately. Personal branding today is not about being visible everywhere. It is about being understood in the right places.


Those who will lead the next phase of business growth will not be the loudest voices in the room. They will be the most intentional. The ones who understand that keeping everything private may feel safe, but sharing nothing at all quietly limits relevance.


Because in business, people don’t need to know your entire story. They need to know enough to trust your judgment, your leadership, and your intent. That balance — between privacy and presence — is where modern personal branding truly begins.


And if that is what is missing in your journey now, you can reach out to me and we shall work on this together. Book your free consultation call with me on https://www.sprect.com/pro/divyaaadvaani


(The author is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

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