Story of lost battles (potentially?)

Two personalities have been making rounds in Pune for the last few days. Vidyanand Bapat and Santosh Pandit. Both appear to stand against the establishments, yet now appear to have lost the narrative.

Mr. Bapat does have a very valid point that DJ and loudspeakers should be banned. They do not serve any kind of purpose in "celebtating" Ganapati Utsav in a traditional way. The utsav was started when there was a need to bring various social strata together under one umbrella. After independence, that need was gone, but the tradition continued. However, over the last couple of decades, this has become more of a nuisance than a way of being together. Almost every corner of the city has a separate pandal, with its own speakers spitting out anything but the "bhakti geete". I must admit there are certain "मंडळे" who do good work, have some social initiatives all round the year. But these are far and few. I want to focus on the noise others generate, as that is the main point of contention. Mr. Bapat picked it up very well and used the forum to put forward the point. The media picked it up. However, after a few interviews, Mr. Bapat started sounding like having an hidden agenda of demeaning the Hindu religion. His comments went far beyond noise pollution and started hurting people's sentiments beyond the sound pollution point. And this is where I feel the narrative is lost. Now several of the early supporters are questioning his intentions. The political parties are taking advantage of the diluted narrative, and it is getting spun, resulting in no reduction on sound pollution. If Mr. Bapat had kept it to sound pollution, inconvenience to residents and may be traffic congestion, without deliberating over his beliefs or lack thereof, thousands of punekars "could" have stepped out to support and push the government to implement the court's ruling/guidelines. I don't see that happening now.

The next one is Mr. Pandit. He used to create videos exposing several bad practices or local government issues. E.g. traffic violations, bad road conditions etc. I had came across his reels a few times. Today he has been arrested for some supposedly provocative reel basis some woman's FIR. It also has a backdrop of the fact that he caught some politician on video violating traffic norms (e.g. HSRP plate, seat belt etc), and a suggestion of corruption in open gym project at some location. However, when I watched his reels, what came out was his language - not one that any sane person can approve of/support. And that is where I feel Mr. Pandit lost it. Here again the narrative will be spinned and basic point will get sidelined. 

In both cases, had the person kept it to the point, not digressed, there was a hope to see some change on those specific points. Now, I don't see it happening.