Pankaja Munde skips BJP’s OBC morcha

Days after she openly voiced her dissent against state leadership of the party, Bharatiya Janata Party’s national secretary and former state minister Pankaja Munde skipped the party’s day long OBC morcha at its Mumbai office on Monday

Days after she openly voiced her dissent against state leadership of the party, Bharatiya Janata Party’s national secretary and former state minister Pankaja Munde skipped the party’s day long OBC morcha at its Mumbai office on Monday.

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Munde’s absence was conspicuous as she had openly expressed her discontent last week after her younger sister and Beed MP Pritam was denied inclusion in the central cabinet during its recent expansion and elevation of another OBC leader from her region, Bhagwat Karad, as a union minister.

While expressing her full faith in party’s central leaders prime minister Narendra Modi and union home minister Amit Shah, Munde had last week hit out, in her veiled attack, at leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis. The former chief minister is believed to have played a key role in selecting the MPs inducted from Maharashtra in the Modi cabinet. She even had said that it was not time to quit the party and the decision would be taken at appropriate time. She was addressing her supporters gathered outside her Worli office to registered their protest for the ‘unjust’ decision.

Munde is a key leader from the OBC which is the strong base of the BJP. She is the eldest daughter of the late Gopinath Munde, who played a significant role in building the party’s base in Maharashtra. He was also regarded as the most influential OBC leader in the state and is often credited with changing the earlier perception of the BJP that it was a party of a few upper caste communities. After her father’s death in 2014, Pankaja has been fighting to retain his legacy in state politics. Karad’s elevation into the cabinet is seen as an attempt by the state unit leaders of downsizing Mundes who enjoy strong support among OBC communities.

Her keeping away from the launch of the OBC Chetan Abhiyaan has raised many eyebrows in the party. The drive was launched in the presence of national general secretary of OBC Morcha Sangamlal Gupta, leader of opposition in Maharashtra Assembly Devendra Fadnavis and Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrakant Patil.

Senior BJP leader and former finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said that Munde will remain in the party till her ‘last breath’.

Another party leaders Chandrashekhar Bawankule too was away from the function.

Both Munde and Bawankule had attended OBC Chintan Shibir in Lonawala last month along with Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar.