With three days to go for dahi handi, the festival is set to be a ruling party affair this year. The Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have geared up for a massive celebration, though they maintain that the festivities will be in compliance with the Supreme Court verdict.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress will be conspicuous by their absence. Until two years ago, the parties would put up star-studded dahi handi events, with lakhs promised as prize money.
Last year, the two parties cited the drought as the reason for steering clear of festivities, this year they have expressed unhappiness with the restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court and the government’s inability to challenge the ruling.
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The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is ready to grab the opportunity created by their absence, with an eye on the Mumbai and Thane municipal polls likely to be held in February 2017. In Dadar alone, the party’s bastion, MNS will organise four dahi handi events. Its leaders from Thane, Chembur, Kalbadevi and the Western suburbs will also organise similar celebrations.
Pratap Sarnaik, the Shiv Sena MLA from Thane, said, “It is a Hindu festival and must be celebrated with vigour and enthusiasm. Why should a court order stop us from celebrating our festival? We are not going to violate any of the SC directives, but at the same time we will not disappoint govindas who have been preparing for it for many months now.”
Mr. Sarnaik’s Sanskruti Pratishthan has been one of the biggest dahi handi organisers in Mumbai and Thane for many years, with prizes worth lakhs of rupees awarded and stars from Hindi and Marathi film industry being the regular guests on the day.
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Similarly, BJP’s MLA from Ghatkopar, Ram Kadam, who is credited with initiating huge cash prizes to govinda mandals and making dahi handi a glitzy affair, said he won’t back down from the usual scale of festivities. “My dahi handi event will be with a social message against addiction,” he said.
Mr Kadam, however, refused to divulge details of the prize money on offer.
But there is no such revelry in the Congress-NCP camp.
NCP’s Jitendra Awhad, whose Sangharsh Dahi Handi in Thane rose to fame after Spanish players participated in the festival a few years ago, has decided not to go ahead with festivities. “The Supreme Court order imposes a number of restrictions on the celebration of the festival. It has ended the enjoyment in it. We feel that celebrating it with such restrictions won’t do justice to the festival itself,” he said. Mr. Awhad, in 2015, had decided not to celebrate dahi handi citing the drought in the State.
Mumbai NCP chief Sachin Ahir’s dahi handi at Worli used to be a star-studded affair, with live song and dance performances and presence of top Bollywood stars, until two years ago.
“The BJP government for the last one year didn’t bother to challenge the Bombay High Court order and strictures from SC are the result of it. I will not be organising a dahi handi event this year, but have asked my party members to organise it, if they want, only by abiding with SC directives,” he said.
Congress leader and Mumbai unit president Sanjay Nirupam, too, has called off dahi handi celebrations, which he had helmed until two years ago.