Maharashtra BJP chief says Pankaja’s name was proposed for the June 20 Maharashtra Legislative council elections, but the party’s central leadership did not consider it.
The BJP on Wednesday fielded five candidates for the June 20 Maharashtra Legislative council elections but missing from the list was former MP Pankaja Munde. Relegated to the periphery since her loss to her cousin and rival Dhananjay Munde in the 2019 Assembly elections, the BJP leadership has scuttled Pankaja’s plans to return to a prominent role in state politics.
“We wanted to see Pankaja Munde as the Opposition leader in the state council,” said a close aide of Munde. At present, Pankaja, the daughter of the late Gopinath Munde and a former state minister, serves as the national BJP secretary in charge of Madhya Pradesh.
According to political observers, a look at the list of candidates chosen — Praveen Darekar, Ram Shinde, Shrikant Bharatiya, Uma Khapre, and Prasad Lad — shows that former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had his way in shortlisting them. Darekar is the current Leader of the Opposition in the council and a section of the party was against renominating him. But ignoring the displeasure of such leaders, the party not only renominated him but also retained his Opposition leader status in the council. Bharatiya, a party general secretary, was part of the Chief Minister’s Office during Fadnavis’ tenure between 2014 and 2019, while Ram Shinde was the water conservation minister in the Fadnavis-led administration. His candidature and that of BJP state women’s wing Uma Khapre are being viewed as the party’s signal to its Other Backward Class (OBC) voter base.
State BJP president Chandrakant Patil claimed that both he and Fadnavis had proposed Pankaja’s name to the central leadership. “But the central leadership had its own reasons for not considering her name for a council seat. Probably, there are some other plans for Pankaja Munde,” Patil added.
According to party insiders, Pankaja’s actions since her 2019 loss have led the party to continue keeping her sidelined. Following the defeat from Parli, a family bastion held by her father, Pankaja alleged that it was “handiwork” of BJP insiders. The speculation in political circles at the time was that Pankaja’s defeat was a result of the state BJP’s internal power struggle as she had presented herself as a contender for the chief minister’s chair. Her public remarks soured her relationship with Fadnavis.
At a public gathering in Beed in December 2019, she said, “A defeat in one election does not bother me. But a situation is being created so that I leave the party. I am not going to quit the party. If the party wants, it can leave me. The point is why walk out of the house that we built? If the roof collapses, we will think.”
In a comment that was perceived as a dig at the BJP’s state leadership, Pankaja said last year, “My leaders are Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and party president J P Nadda.”
A party leader on Pankaja’s side, said, “After the defeat in 2019, she expected to be made state BJP president or at least the Opposition leader in the council. Later, it was impressed upon her that she would be made a Rajya Sabha member.” But neither position came her way.
In another perceived slight to the Pankaja camp, her younger sister and Beed MP Pritam Munde Khade did not find space in the Narendra Modi-led government’s council of ministers while Bhagwat Karad, who is also from the Marathwada region, was appointed minister of state (MoS) for finance. Karad hails from the same Vanjari OBC community as the Munde sisters. Pankaja saw it as a strategy to undermine her leadership in the Marathwada region. During a three-day protest in June 2021, supporters of the Munde sisters in local civic bodies resigned, prompting the BJP central leadership to tell Pankaja to get her supporters to stop going against the party line.
Last November, when the BJP overlooked Pankaja yet again and promoted Vinod Tawde from secretary to party general secretary, Pankaja said, “I cannot plead with leaders for higher posts.”
A senior BJP functionary said on the condition of anonymity, “Having political ambitions and working towards it is understandable. But if you believe you can dictate terms to a cadre-based organisation, it will not work. Especially, when you have the top leadership, including Modi and Shah, watching.”
Explaining the role of leaders in the BJP, Patil explained, “We are like empty envelopes. Whatever address the party writes on the envelope, we have to accept and start doing our work. Every worker who is loyal and hardworking is rewarded. Nothing goes unnoticed in our organisation.”
Source:indianexpress.com