Mamata Plays 'Dhaak' & Performs Daandiya in Kolkata, Mrs. Thackeray's 'Aarti' Plans in Shinde Bastion: Painted in Political Hue, What Netas Are Up to This Durga Puja

It’s the festive season and that time of the year when politicians go all out to connect with the people. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is in a festive spirit, was seen playing the ‘dhaak‘ (a drum-like traditional musical instrument) at the opening of the popular pandal of Suruchi Sangha in New Alipore area of Kolkata and was also seen performing daandiya later.

With the dhaak slunged around her shoulder, Mamata Banerjee cut the ribbon to inaugurate the puja pandal and walked in while playing the heavy instrument.

She then placed the dhaak on the floor and continued playing it, with her Cabinet colleague Firhad Hakim also joining in.

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Mamata Banerjee was later also seen trying her hands at dandiya at the Chakraberia Sarbojanin Durgotsab in Kolkata.

Mamata Banerjee has been inaugurating pandals back to back in Kolkata where Durga Puja is one of the biggest festivals. UNESCO on December 15 inscribed “Durga Puja in Kolkata” on the “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”.

The festival of Durga Puja, also known as Durgotsava or Sharodotsava, that begins from the sixth day of Navratri, is a yearly celebration that honours the Hindu goddess Durga and commemorates her victory over Mahishasur.

Politics over Navrarti in Maharashtra

In Maharashtra, Navratri celebrations seems to have found its place in the current Shiv Sena tussle with Rashmi Thackeray, wife of Uddhav Thackeray, planning to visit the navratri pandal at Thane’s Tembhi naka, which is CM Eknath Shinde’s stronghold and the epicenter of revolt in the party.

This comes as Team Uddhav of Shiv Sena is locked in a bitter confrontation with the Eknath Shinde camp in a bid to establish the claimant of the ‘real Sena’.

A Sena functionary said that apart from Tembhi Naka, where she will perform an arati of the goddess, Rashmi will also visit the pandal set up by the party’s Thane MP, Rajan Vichare. “She does this every year,” Hindustan Times quoted a Vichare as saying.

Sheetal Mhatre, former corporator and spokesperson of the Shinde camp, claimed that Team Uddhav was trying to gather crowds from Mumbai as it was left with little presence in Thane after Shinde’s rebellion.

Mhatre claimed that a large number of women Sena workers would accompany Rashmi Thackeray to show support. “Why should this condition befall the party? Why should women from Mumbai be sent to Thane?” she said.

Eye on BMC Polls, BJP Plans One-of-its-Kind Navratri Event in Sena-Dominated Parel

The BJP also seems to be juicing the occasion of Navratri to make social and cultural inroads into Shiv Sena-dominated areas of South Central Mumbai in the run up to the crucial Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls.

In a first-of-its-kind event during Navratri, the BJP has organised a Marathi Garbha at Abhyuday Nagar near Lower Parel in the heart of South Mumbai. The event will take place through the second half of the Navratri festival, with BJP inviting popular Marathi singers and musicians to woo the Maharashtrian crowd, Indian Express reported.

The Shiv Sena has dominated the vote bank in South Central Mumbai, comprising mainly Marathi-speaking voters, for about two decades, and its residents are considered to be loyalists of the party.

“The Sena’s success in these areas is partly attributed to its grasp over the area’s social and cultural vibe. As long as the Sena and the BJP were in alliance, the party never allowed the BJP to enter these areas. This was expected, as with every alliance, there is an understanding, and pockets, where either party has a stronghold, are untouched by the alliance partner: much like the Sena did not make inroads into the Gujarati and Marwari-dominated area of Mulund,” the report quoted Sanjay Patil, who works at the University of Mumbai and has been chronicling the Sena’s journey for the last decade, as saying.

Patil said that with the rivalry between the BJP and the Thackerays at its peak, the party would want to capture the Sena’s vote bank.

On the occasion of Dahi Handi, too, the BJP had organised an event at the Jambori Maidan in Worli, where the Shiv Sena used to host a large gathering every year before the Covid pandemic.

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