Politicians’ ingratiating largesse will afford the richest layer of cream in the Janmashtami curd pots this year, with unprecedented cash rewards.
MUMBAI: Politicians’ ingratiating largesse will afford the richest layer of cream in the Janmashtami curd pots this year, with unprecedented cash rewards being dangled at never-before heights in handi-breaking competitions.
On top of the prize-pyramid is Jitendra Avhad of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). He is offering Rs1,111,111 for successful pot-breakers, and has claimed to be the ‘Amitabh Bachchan of dahi handi’ in Maharashtra.
He is alluding to the handi at his event which will be set at 45 feet, a record. It will require at least a nine-tier pyramid to reach the jackpot.
Avhad was the first to tap the festival’s potential as a political marketing tool. It has, however, not done much for the NCP’s fortunes in Thane.
Another claimant for the ‘best’ dahi handi competition is Sanjay Nirupam, a Congress leader. Nirupam has promised to organise the most entertaining event of the year: A dancing Isha Koppikar will lace the curd quest with Bollywood glamour.
Stand-up comedians Raju Srivastava and Sunil Pal are also a part of the bill.
“We have also invited Bhojpuri film actor Ravi Kissen, and Bollywood actor Rajpal Yadav to attend the event,” Nirupam said.
“This year we will give away gold coins worth Rs3 lakh to the mandal that breaks the handi.” Nirupam said that politicians’ involvement in festivals is unexceptionable. “We are a part of this society. Govinda is the greatest cultural tradition of Maharashtra and we are promoting it for our next generation,” he said.
The temptation to appeal to the public when it is in a festive mood has exerted its influence across the political spectrum.
The late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan’s daughter has entered the handi ring this year. “I want to dedicate this dahi handi to my father,” Poonam Mahajan said. “It will be a fun event with Marathi cultural programmes. There will be two dahi handis, one with prize money of Rs1 lakh and the other with Rs51,000.”
“These are the moments when you really get in touch with middle-class Mumbai,” Mahajan said. NCP leader Sachin Ahir’s handi competition at Jambhoree Maidan in Worli will give away Rs5 lakh. Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has organised events in Dahisar and Chembur.
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