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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.

Dangerous Departures

Correspondent
Oct 29, 2024
2 min read

Updated: Oct 30, 2024

Dangerous Departures

In yet another shocking incident adding to Mumbai’s infamous tryst with stampedes, chaos erupted at Mumbai’s Bandra Terminus following a weekend stampede that left at least ten persons injured, two critically so. A crowd surged toward the Gorakhpur-bound train with nearly 1,500 people vying for seats in 22 unreserved compartments, leading to the stampede. Several others narrowly avoided tragedy, with some even pushed onto the tracks. This is not a unique episode but rather a recurring theme in Mumbai’s bedevilled crowd management, one that has haunted the city’s public spaces, particularly as festive seasons magnify the crowds.


Mumbai is no stranger to stampedes. A horrifying incident in 2017 at Elphinstone Road Station left 23 people dead and nearly 50 injured. The cause was a familiar one: an overwhelming crowd confined to a narrow footbridge during peak rush hour. The tragedy sparked an outcry, with promises from authorities to upgrade infrastructure and enhance safety protocols. Yet seven years on, crowd-related incidents continue to be a constant danger. Today’s incident reveals a similar lapse—a lack of foresight in managing the thousands who gather on platforms ahead of Diwali, eager to return to family. That the Gorakhpur Express was unreserved and heavily crowded was predictable.


The issue lies beyond simply crowd density; it is emblematic of deeper systemic negligence. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), responsible for local public safety, along with the Railways Ministry, bear responsibility for ensuring order at such high-risk hubs. Although the BMC acknowledged the “festive rush,” it appears little was done to pre-empt it. Swift action could have been taken to either disperse the crowd or reroute passengers. Instead, chaos prevailed.


Political reaction has been swift but uninspiring. Aaditya Thackeray, son of Uddhav Thackeray, launched a scathing attack on the Union Railways Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, branding the incident a result of the minister’s “incapable” leadership. This hardly addresses the immediate need: a substantive plan to manage crowds and prevent similar incidents.


Mumbai’s transport infrastructure remains sorely outdated. Platforms are undersized, signalling systems frequently falter, and crowd control mechanisms are grossly inadequate. Despite repeated accidents, there has been little investment in comprehensive crowd management systems or the deployment of personnel trained in emergency response. While railway footbridges were widened after the Elphinstone tragedy, Bandra’s incident demonstrates that such incremental changes are insufficient. Mumbai, which sees a swelling populace during festivals, demands a robust strategy to address its vulnerabilities. This should include technology-driven crowd monitoring, clear communication channels to inform passengers of platform conditions, and additional security and medical staff on high-demand days. It is essential that crowd management training for personnel becomes a priority rather than a reaction to tragedies.

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