Kin battle it out for Gopinath Munde’s legacy

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, April 13

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Personality clashes between kin of the of the late Gopinath Munde’s family dominate the electoral battle in Beed, which was represented by the late BJP leader.

While Munde’s daughter Pritam is seeking a re-election from this seat, her antagonist is her cousin Dhananjay, who joined the Nationalist Congress Party shortly after the death of the BJP leader in 2014.

The outcome of the contest will determine who inherits the legacy of a leader who was instrumental in building the party in Maharashtra.

Pritam won the Beed seat by a margin of more than 7 lakh votes in the by-elections that were held following the death of her father in a road accident in New Delhi in 2014. With the Nationalist Congress Party not fielding a candidate out of respect to the late Munde, Pritam’s victory was a foregone conclusion.

However, Dhananjay’s emergence as a strong NCP leader has thrown up multiple options in this seat.
Reports from Beed indicate that Dhananjay and the NCP machinery have played a major role in breaking up the coalition of the Marathas and the Mundes’ Wanjari community that were woven by the late BJP leader. Though Dhananjay Munde is not in the fray directly, he is credited with getting NCP’s district president Bajrang Sonavane to enter the electoral battle. Known for his muscular politics, Sonavane is banking on Maratha votes shifting to the NCP from Pritam Munde.

On the other hand Pritam is banking on the support of her elder sister and Rural Development Minister Pankaja. The sisters have turned the contest into one about who will inherit Gopinath Munde’s legacy.

”Dhananjay is a traitor who has betrayed your leader,” Pankaja roars at rally after rally. She even goes on to accuse her cousin of grabbing public land to build a textile mill.

Dhananjay, who is the Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council (upper house), accuses his cousins of failing to complete major road, railway and irrigation projects in the constituency. He even accuses Pankaja of corruption in the chikki scam, where substandard chikkis were procured from a business owned by a party colleague for supply to lactating mothers and their children.

NCP leaders say the caste arithmetic could make things difficult for Pritam in the Lok Sabha polls. While the Wanjaris, an Other Backward Caste, accounts for 5 lakh voters there are 6 lakh Marathas in the constituency. Dalits and Marathas account for 4.5 lakh and 3.5 lakh voters, respectively. NCP leaders say Gopinath Munde had won the 2009 and 2014 elections by around 1.4 lakh votes.

“There is severe agrarian distress in the district and farmers are forced to send their cattle to government camps. People are angry with the BJP,” NCP leader Nawab Malik said.