BJP-Shinde faction aims to dominate Navratri

As Navratri celebrations began in the city and suburbs on Monday, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde decided to be in the midst of the festivities

Mumbai As Navratri celebrations began in the city and suburbs on Monday, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde decided to be in the midst of the festivities. He joined the procession to welcome Goddess Durga at Tembhi Naka, Thane, where the Navratri celebrations was started and popularised by his mentor -- late Sena leader Anand Dighe.

It is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction’s attempt to resume their dominance over the festive season (Praful Gangurde)

It is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction’s attempt to resume their dominance over the festive season, after making their presence felt at Dahi-handi and Ganeshotsav, recently. The ruling combine’s dominance over the Navratri celebrations is also an endeavour to assert the Hindutva agenda and score over their political rival – the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.

While Ganeshotsav has been traditionally dominated by Shiv Sena, this year BJP and the Shinde faction took a march over the Thackeray-led faction. Shinde visited more than 400 pandals and an equal number of homes in Mumbai and Thane at the time.

He is expected to replicate this strategy over the next 10 days of Navratri.

Wooing communities and striking the emotive chord is an old BJP game plan. The party is also using the festival to reach out to its core voters—the Gujaratis and Marwaris, who form a significant chunk of linguistic voters in and around Mumbai, after Marathi and Hindi speakers.

BJP has been organising Dandiya, Garba and Bhondala at 49 places and sponsoring the celebration at 300 hubs with 242 organising pandals. Seventeen events of dandiya have been organised by the party on a grand scale. It also sponsored 320 dahi handi celebrations, along with a strong support for the Ganesh pandals extensively this year.

The municipal elections, especially those in Mumbai, where the BJP and Shinde camp are looking to wrest control of the richest civic body in India from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, will be the first test of popularity for the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government. And clearly, the ruling coalition is on an overdrive to keep everyone happy.

“We have been asked to ensure that Hindu festivals are celebrated with pomp, with few impediments created for the mandals and revelers. It is obvious that purse strings have to be loosened to please these groups,” explained a leader from the Shinde camp.

He added that the Shinde faction was eager to win over many Ganpati and Navratri mandals to their side because their members came from the working class and hence invaluable foot-soldiers during elections.

The leader, who is a former corporator, said that apart from sponsorships for mandals and distributing merchandise like T-shirts to them, the process of seeking permissions from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the police were also eased. “The idea is to send a message that there will be no hurdle in the celebration of Hindu festivals,” he explained.

A BJP leader said, “We have been aiding these festivities in the form of sponsorship and political support for years, but this year we have presented it in a packaged form. Our corporators, MLAs and MPs used to be involved at the local level, who are now are monitoring it at the city unit level. Our jump to 82 seats in 2017 from 31 in 2012 was achieved by our support to these festivities and establishing direct links with various communities. Based on this experience, the party became directly involved in the festivals with an eye on the polls.”

When the party organised a competition for pandals during Ganeshotsav in Mumbai, it received an overwhelming response, with over 1100 participations. At least a few lakh people may have become attached to the party through this contest alone, another leader of the party in Mumbai explained.

“The emotive attachment, with a common thread of religion, lasts long and helps us in the election. In fact, this has been the ‘unique selling point’ of the Sena for years, but the party has failed to galvanise its strength during these festivals for various reasons after the vertical split. It has lost key leaders and thereby the financial sources required to woo the mandals. We have intentionally targetted the Sena-dominated areas,” said the leader.

BJP vice president and MLA Parag Alvani however said, “Our association with festivities is not just for political gain. We have been involved for decades; it is visible now because of our widened support base. We do not want to compete with the Sena. Our political success is backed by larger acceptances we have gathered among people.”

Much of the outreach is being handled by Shinde and his close associates.