Mumbai: The Maharashtrian new 12 months, or Gudi Padwa, has change into the most recent competition to be appropriated by the Bharatiya Janata Occasion within the state, in an try to ascertain a mass contact train because it continues to focus on the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi within the run as much as the Mumbai civic polls anticipated this 12 months.
Gudi Padwa is being celebrated in Maharashtra Wednesday and the BJP has introduced that one lakh occasion karyakartas in Mumbai will show gudhis — sugar crystals, neem leaves, mango leaves and a garland of pink flowers, strung on a protracted bamboo pole and hoisted atop homes — at their properties. The show of gudhis at properties is believed to deliver prosperity and good luck.
Gudhis may even be hoisted at 9,800 (occasion) cubicles, every of which has an 11-member committee, BJP’s Mumbai unit chief Ashish Shelar mentioned at a press convention Tuesday.
BJP leaders, sales space chiefs and activists may even take out a “shobha yatra” (procession) in varied components of the Maharashtra capital on the event, Shelar added. The procession can be taken out in Lalbaug, Parel, Worli, Vile Parle, Borivali and Dahisar areas, which have a robust Marathi presence.
“For the previous few days, Thackeray’s occasion and (different) events from the MVA (alliance) have been attempting laborious to woo the voters of a specific neighborhood, and the gudhi of Hindutva will actually be a befitting reply to this inexperienced storm in Mumbai,” Shelar mentioned.
The MVA includes the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the Nationalist Congress Occasion (NCP) and the Congress.
The alliance, led by then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, had been in energy in Maharashtra until June final 12 months, when a riot within the Sena led by current CM Eknath Shinde led to the occasion to separate and the MVA authorities to break down. The Shinde faction then went on to type a authorities within the state with the help of the BJP.
Now, elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Company (BMC) are more likely to be held this 12 months and in a bid to wrest management of the company from the Shiv Sena (UBT), the BJP has been concentrating on its core voter base, Mumbai’s Marathi-speaking Hindu inhabitants.
The Sena beneath Uddhav Thackeray had managed the Mumbai civic physique for 25 years, earlier than it got here beneath a state-appointed administrator in March final 12 months after the time period of the overall physique expired.
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Politics over festivals
This isn’t the primary time that politics has been performed over festivals by political events within the state.
The BJP had previously tried to provide out the message that the MVA had suppressed the celebration of Maharashtrian festivals, whereas the coalition was in energy in Maharashtra between late 2019 and June 2022.
Public celebrations of many festivals had been restricted throughout a lot of the MVA tenure owing to the Covid pandemic.
Because the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena got here to energy in Maharashtra in alliance with the BJP in June 2022, each competition, from Dahi Handi to Ganesh Chaturthi to Diwali, has been celebrated on a grand scale by political events.
The BJP had organized competitions for Dahi Handi and the Ganesh competition final 12 months, whereas on Navaratri, a first-of-its-kind Marathi Dandiya was organized by the occasion’s Mumbai wing.
The Shiv Jayanti competition earlier this 12 months had additionally was a political occasion with the Mumbai BJP organising a Shiv Aarti occasion throughout the 227 wards of the BMC.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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