BJP MP Medha Kulkarni rushes in to stop ‘noisy’ garba event, alleges inaction by Pune police
Medha Kulkarni said she faced heckling from the young crowd but said she would approach higher authorities if the police did not take action against such noise pollution.
Kulkarni asserted that she will not allow such events to take place at the Jeet ground. (Express photo)
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Medha Kulkarni halted a “loud” garba event, a dance performed during the Navratri festival, in the Kothrud area of Pune late Saturday evening after receiving a spate of complaints from people, including the elderly and those with health issues.
Kulkarni went straight to the Jeet ground in Kothrud, where the event was in progress. She found that several youngsters were playing dandiya to loud music being played by DJs, ignoring all environmental laws.
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”I was visiting other mandals in the city for ‘aarti’. Like every day, I received some calls and messages on my cell phone from citizens. They complained to me every day that loud music was being played on the speaker system at the dandiya event. Among those who complained were cancer patients and even a 90-year-old citizen,” Kulkarni told The Indian Express.
The MP expressed her shock at discovering that all environmental laws had been disregarded and music was being played at ear-splitting levels. “When I reached the spot, to my shock, I found huge walls of DJs were set up and deafening music was being played. I arrived there around 9.30 pm and immediately forced them to stop the music system. I had to do it for the sake of the hassled citizens. Elderly and ailing citizens were calling me up for three to four hours, complaining about the loud music,” she said.
”How can the police allow all environmental laws to be thrown to the wind? How can the organisers trample upon the laid-down norms? Does no one bother about the fragile environment that we live in? Are we not concerned about our future generations?” she asked.
Kulkarni said when she tried to stop the loud music, she was heckled by the young crowd. ”They heckled me and jeered at me. They insulted me. Like the troll army of social media, they were trolling. But it did not bother me. I was trying to convince them they must also be having elderly and ailing relatives and grandparents at their homes, but they continued to heckle me.”
“Let them do what they want. I will not allow them to violate the environmental laws and threaten the lives of the elderly and ailing citizens,” she said.
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Kulkarni asserted that she will not allow such events to take place at the Jeet ground. ”If the police are not doing anything, I will approach Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and ask him to put an end to this menace,” she said.
Kulkarni said that since the start of Navratri, she had been forwarding complaints received from citizens to Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar and other senior officials, including DCPs. ”But they have done nothing about these nuisance makers,” she said.
The MP said she had learnt that the Pune police had not given permission for holding the event. ”But it seems some politicians had put pressure and forced the police to allow the event to take place.”
The MP said, ”We never saw that you should not follow your religion. However, at the same time, people should organise such events that adhere to religious principles and values. Those which will add honour to the religion. You can’t have pernicious music and ugly dances.”
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Close aides of Kulkarni said the MP had also called up the Pune police during Ganpati and complained about the noisy festival. ”The MP told the police that she will go on a hunger strike if they don’t take action against the noisy mandals. The police informed me that it was against the law. Then I told them they can arrest me,” she said.
MP draws praise
The MP’s initiative has drawn praise from environmentally conscious citizens and even those opposed to the BJP. “I never thought any BJP leader would make me compliment them. However, I would like to congratulate Medha Kulkarni for her strong stance against the noisy event. All these noisy events should be stopped. City should experience peace… Even the Ganesh festival should be held in a peaceful manner. There should be no noise,” said activist Vishwambhar Choudhari.
Environmentalist Prashant Raul said, ”Medha Kulkarni is an environmentalist to the core. She is a politician in the real sense. She cares for Pune, its citizens and their health. We want to compliment her for stopping the noisy event and showing how much she cares for the environment and our elderly and ailing citizens. The MP should now keep the momentum going and put pressure on the government not to allow DJs or any other form of loud music to be played during our festivals.”
Raul said that when the environmentalists launched the campaign to save our rivers, the MP was right upfront. “I remember she had landed up at 7 in the morning for the campaign. Because of her presence, we got a new energy,” he said.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
