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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.

Timeline of Indo-Pak armed conflicts

PTI
May 7, 2025
2 min read
Local people gather near parts of an unknown jet that crashed after midnight at Wuyan in Pampore of Pulwama district in J&K. Pic PTI
Local people gather near parts of an unknown jet that crashed after midnight at Wuyan in Pampore of Pulwama district in J&K. Pic PTI

1947 (first Indo-Pak War): The war, also known as the First Kashmir War, broke out over the then princely state of Jammu and Kashmir between the newly independent nations India and Pakistan. It began in October 1947 when Pakistan-backed tribal militias invaded the princely state. In response, post the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian Union by Maharaja Hari Singh, India sent its troops to defend the region, leading to full-scale conflict between the two nations.


The conflict continued until January 1949, when a UN-mediated ceasefire was implemented, resulting in the division of Kashmir between India and Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC).


1965 (second Indo-Pak War): The armed conflict broke out on August 5, 1965 over Kashmir. It was triggered when thousands of Pakistani soldiers, disguised as local insurgents, infiltrated the Indian territory across the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir.


The covert operation, known as 'Operation Gibraltar', aimed to destabilise the region and provoke local uprisings. India responded by launching a military counter-offensive, which escalated into a full-scale combat along the international border. The war continued until September 23, 1965, when both sides agreed to a ceasefire, brokered by the Soviet Union and the United States.


1971 (Bangladesh Liberation War): The 1971 Indo-Pak War was triggered by Pakistani military's crackdown on East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and its demand for independence. India entered the war in support of the Bangladeshi independence movement, and after intense fight on both the eastern and western fronts, Pakistan's forces surrendered on December 16, 1971.


The war led to the creation of Bangladesh as an independent nation.


1999 (Kargil War): The 1999 Kargil War was a high-altitude conflict between India and Pakistan, fought from May to July after Pakistani troops and terrorists occupied peaks in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir. India launched 'Operation Vijay' to reclaim the territory, supported by the Air Force's 'Operation Safed Sagar'. The war ended on July 26 with India regaining control, a day now marked as 'Kargil Vijay Diwas'.


2016 (Uri Attack): Following the terrorist attack on an Indian Army base in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, on September 18, 2016, which killed 19 soldiers, India conducted a surgical strike on September 28–29 across the LoC. The Indian Army targeted multiple terrorist launch pads in PoK, claiming significant casualties among terrorists preparing to infiltrate.


2019 (Pulwama attack): On February 26, 2019, the Indian Air Force carried out airstrikes on a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist training camp in Balakot, Pakistan, in response to the Pulwama terror attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel. Using fighter jets, India targeted the camp deep inside Pakistani territory, marking the first such airstrike since the 1971 war.

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