Maharashtra: Political One-Upmanship On Display As Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis Attends 14 Dahi Handi Events, Deputy CM Eknath Shinde 20

Mumbai: Dahi Handi may be billed as a cultural event, but in Mumbai’s political calendar it has become a gladiatorial arena where leaders clamber to the top almost as frenetically as the govindas themselves.

Dahi Handi Events Attended By Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis

On Saturday, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis attended no fewer than 14 handis while his deputy, Eknath Shinde, bested him with a score touching 20. Of the CM’s 14 engagements, seven were in Thane and adjoining areas—Shinde’s traditional bastion—underlining the BJP’s ambition to consolidate its own footprint there, regardless of its alliance arithmetic with the Shinde-led Shiv Sena.

At Worli’s Parivartan Dahi Handi, organised by BJP leader Santosh Pande inside Aaditya Thackeray’s assembly turf, Fadnavis couldn’t resist lobbing a pot-shot at the Shiv Sena (UBT). “We have broken the handi of sins of those who looted the BMC,” he declared, promising that the BJP-led Mahayuti was ushering in a “handi of development.” The dig is significant with elections to the BMC and several other civic bodies looming.

Flanked by Mumbai BJP president and Cultural Affairs Minister Ashish Shelar, the CM signalled that the ruling combine was ready to storm the nation’s richest civic body. Fadnavis’s remarks came in the backdrop of Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut’s claim that his party and Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena would fight civic polls together. The CM, however, sought to paint the Uddhav camp as mired in corruption, a theme the BJP hopes will resonate with voters tired of decades of Sena dominance in the corporation.

Ever since the Shinde-Fadnavis government came to power in 2022, Dahi Handi has received a political facelift. It was promptly accorded “adventure sport” status, with the state underwriting insurance for one lakh govindas who risk life and limb to smash the dangling pots of curd and cash. This year’s cover is being marketed as proof that the alliance cares as much for the men forming human pyramids as for the voters they symbolise.

At Thane’s Tembhi Naka Mitra Mandal, Fadnavis turned effusive, hailing Shinde as the “true Shiv Sainik of Balasaheb Thackeray” and heir to the late Anand Dighe’s legacy. But the subtext was unmistakable: while the govindas climbed upward, the BJP too is scrambling to reach the political summit of Mumbai’s civic citadel.