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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 Quiet Growth Block

Writer: Divyaa Advaani 
Divyaa Advaani 
Dec 26, 2025
3 min read

In almost every closed-door conversation with a seasoned business owner today, a similar confession surfaces — often spoken quietly, sometimes with discomfort, and usually followed by a pause. “I know content matters now. I just don’t have the time for it.” What follows is a familiar list of frustrations. They don’t know what to post. They’re not comfortable recording videos. They’re unsure what their audience would even find valuable. Their team keeps insisting that LinkedIn and Instagram must stay active. And yet, despite years of business success, this new demand feels foreign, intrusive, and oddly exhausting.


What many founders don’t immediately realise is that this discomfort has very little to do with content itself. It has everything to do with a deeper shift in how credibility, influence, and growth are perceived today.


For decades, reputation travelled through boardrooms, referrals, and results. Visibility was earned privately. Authority was assumed. Today, however, the marketplace no longer waits for introductions. It observes first. Before a meeting is scheduled, before a conversation begins, before trust is extended, people look you up. They don’t just assess what you’ve built; they assess how you show up.


This is where many accomplished business owners feel stuck in a quiet contradiction. They are respected within their circles, profitable in their ventures, and experienced in their domains — yet invisible, inconsistent, or misrepresented online. The problem is not a lack of expertise. It is a lack of articulation. And that gap is personal branding.


Personal branding is often misunderstood as content creation or social media activity. In reality, it is neither. It is the ability to translate decades of thinking, decision-making, and leadership into a presence that feels coherent, credible, and current. When that translation doesn’t happen, even the most successful founders begin to feel outpaced — not because they lack value, but because their value is no longer visible in the language the world now understands.


This is why “I don’t have time to create content” is rarely the real issue. The real issue is clarity. When founders are unclear about what they stand for, what differentiates them, and what perspective only they can offer, content feels like noise. When that clarity exists, content becomes effortless — not frequent, not loud, but precise.


Another hesitation often surfaces around comfort. Many leaders admit they are not at ease recording videos or speaking online. This discomfort is not vanity; it is identity friction. They have built their authority through action, not projection. But the modern business environment does not reward silence the way it once did. It doesn’t penalise humility, but it does overlook invisibility.


Meanwhile, teams sense this gap. They push for activity because they understand visibility drives relevance. But without strategic personal branding, this pressure only adds confusion. Posting without alignment dilutes credibility. Being present without purpose weakens perception. And founders instinctively resist what feels performative rather than powerful.


What’s truly at stake here is not content metrics or follower counts. It is growth. Expansion today is influenced not just by what a company offers, but by how clearly its leadership is perceived. Investors, partners, clients, and even future talent make judgements based on


presence long before engagement. When a founder’s online identity feels scattered, outdated, or absent, opportunity quietly slips away.


This is why personal branding has become a business priority, not a personal indulgence. It bridges the gap between experience and expression. It allows founders to remain private without being invisible, authoritative without being inaccessible, and current without compromising who they are.


For leaders feeling caught between knowing visibility matters and not knowing how to approach it meaningfully, the answer is not more posting. It is better positioning. It is understanding how your thinking, values, and leadership translate into presence — online and offline — in a way that supports growth rather than distracts from it.


If this reflection feels familiar, it may be time to pause and look at what your personal brand is currently communicating — intentionally or otherwise. Not to perform, but to align. And if you’d like to explore that alignment through a quiet, strategic conversation, you’re welcome to connect with me for a complimentary consultation. Sometimes clarity is all it takes for momentum to return.


You can book a conversation here: https://sprect.com/pro/divyaaadvaani


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

 


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