Mumbai: The Maharashtrian New Year, or Gudi Padwa, has become the latest festival to be appropriated by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state, in an attempt to establish a mass contact exercise as it continues to target the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi. Mumbai civic elections are expected to be held this year.
Gudi Padwa is being celebrated in Maharashtra on Wednesday and BJP has announced one lakh party workers will be displayed in mumbai dolls – A garland of sugar crystals, neem leaves, mango leaves and red flowers, is strung on a tall bamboo pole and hoisted over the houses – in their homes. Display of Gudhi It is believed to bring prosperity and good fortune to homes.
dolls It will also be hoisted at 9,800 (party) booths, each with an 11-member committee, BJP’s Mumbai unit chief Ashish Shelar said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Shelar said that BJP leaders, booth heads and workers would also take out processions in different parts of the Maharashtra capital on the occasion. The procession will be taken out in Lalbagh, Parel, Worli, Vile Parle, Borivali and Dahisar areas, where there is a strong Marathi presence.
“For the last few days, Thackeray’s party and (other) MVA (alliance) parties are trying hard to woo voters of a particular community, and Gudhi Hindutva would indeed be a befitting reply to this green storm in Mumbai,” said Shelar.
The MVA consists of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress.
The alliance led by then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray was in power in Maharashtra till June last year, when a rebellion in the army led by current chief minister Eknath Shinde led to a split in the party and the fall of the MVA government. After this the Shinde faction formed the government in the state with the support of the BJP.
Now, elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are likely to be held this year and in a bid to wrest control of the corporation from the Shiv Sena (UBT), the BJP is targeting its core voter base, the Marathi-speaking Mumbai. Hindu population.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena controlled the Mumbai civic body for 25 years before it came under a state-appointed administrator in March last year after the term of the general body expired.
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politics on festivals
This is not the first time that festivals have been politicized by political parties in the state.
BJP had tried earlier also Messaging that the MVA suppressed the celebration of Maharashtrian festivals while the alliance was in power in Maharashtra between the end of 2019 and June 2022.
Public celebrations of several festivals were prohibited during most of the MVA tenure due to the COVID pandemic.
Ever since the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena came to power in Maharashtra in June 2022 in alliance with the BJP, every festival from Dahi Handi to Ganesh Chaturthi to Diwali has been celebrated on a grand scale by political parties.
The BJP last year arranged competitions for Dahi Handi and Ganesh Utsav, while a first-of-its-kind Marathi dandiya was organized by the party’s Mumbai branch on Navratri.
Earlier this year, the Shiv Jayanti festival also turned into a political event, with the Mumbai BJP organizing Shiv Aarti in 227 wards of the BMC.
(Editing by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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