Dhananjay Munde, Pankaja Munde: Never noticed eye to eye, now out in public view

On Wednesday, estranged cousins ​​and political rivals Dhananjay Munde of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the BJP’s Pankaja Munde took digs at one another throughout the inauguration of famend ophthalmologist Dr Tatyarao Lahane’s hospital in Mumbai within the presence of NCP president Sharad Pawar. The two leaders took the jibes by a play on the phrase lens, one of many instruments of an ophthalmologist’s commerce.

“The guardian minister of our Beed district and our brother Dhananjay Munde…Very few people have been fortunate enough to see through the lenses of Pawar saheb after having grown up looking through the lenses of Munde-Mahajan,” Pankaja stated, referring to BJP leaders Gopinath Munde, her father, and Pramod Mahajan beneath whose steering Dhananjay began his political profession earlier than quitting the BJP to hitch the Pawar-led occasion in 2013.

Responding to his cousin’s feedback, the NCP chief stated, “’Taai (sister)’, generally one has to come back beneath the main target of lenses. I used to be talking to Aaditya Thackeray some time in the past and he stated it might be good if ‘taai’ modified the lenses and used that of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA, the ruling alliance). He stated that, not me.”

The pressure between the 2 cousins ​​stems from the battle over the political legacy of Gopinath Munde, who died in 2014. Groomed by his uncle, the 46-year-old Dhananjay minimize his political tooth as a youth BJP employee earlier than being elevated because the Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha’s state president in 2007. Dhananjay, a superb orator, was seen as an in depth confidant of Gopinath. Along along with his father Panditrao Munde, Dhananjay was given the duty of nurturing Gopinath’s constituency of Parli and taking care of the household’s political pursuits in Beed district. At the time, Dhananjay was seen because the BJP stalwart’s political inheritor.

But the connection between the uncle and the nephew soured in 2009 when Gopinath missed Dhananjay and selected Pankaja to characterize Parli. Pankaja, 42, studied MBA in Bengaluru however dropped out of this system to marry Dr Amit Palve when she was 21 and moved to the US in 2001. She returned to India after three years and settled in Pune. Her father’s determination to decide on her because the heir of his political legacy sowed the early seeds of disaffection between her and Dhananjay.

Despite the saffron occasion attempting to placate Dhananjay by making him a member of the state Legislative Council in 2010, the connection between him and Gopinath began going downhill and led to Dhananjay’s alienation within the occasion.

The closing straw, nonetheless, was Dhananjay’s insistence on making one in all his supporters the town council president within the Parli Municipal Council regardless of his uncle’s opposition. The youthful Munde, who managed to get his nominee elected, claimed that Gopinath was getting insecure about his rising affect in Beed. The BJP management sided with Gopinath. Left with no choices Dhananjay hedged his bets and invited NCP chief and Gopinath Munde’s arch-rival Ajit Pawar to a rally in Parli in January 2012. Panditanna joined the NCP on the occasion.

Though Dhananjay cosied as much as the NCP, it took him two extra years to resign from the BJP. In July 2013, he resigned from the saffron occasion and the legislative council earlier than becoming a member of the NCP. The occasion fielded him within the 2014 Assembly polls from Parli however he misplaced to Pankaja Munde by greater than 25,000 votes. Pankaja was made a cupboard minister within the Devendra Fadnavis-led authorities.

Fight for Beed

Gopinath Munde’s dying in an accident in June 2014 put the 2 cousins ​​in direct battle as they each tried to claim their affect in Beed, The NCP wager large on Dhananjay and made him the Leader of the Opposition within the Maharashtra Legislative Council in December 2014. In the 2019 Assembly elections, Dhananjay managed to trump his cousin by successful Parli by greater than 30,000 votes. While Dhananjay has his energy base within the constituency, the hypothesis in political circles on the time was that Pankaja’s defeat was a results of the state BJP’s inside energy battle as she had introduced herself as a contender for the chief minister’s chair. Dhananjay was additionally believed to have had secret backing from a piece of the state BJP.

Since 2019, the cousins ​​have tried to maintain a low profile. While her electoral defeat and her relationship with the present BJP prime brass within the state have prompted Pankaja to maintain to Beed, Dhananjay Munde has been embroiled in an issue involving a former live-in accomplice (with whom he has two youngsters) and her sister who has accused him of rape. Last month, when Dhananjay was admitted to a hospital in Mumbai after a well being scare, the cousins ​​made conciliatory gestures. But, as Wednesday’s episode exhibits, the battle for dominance in Beed trumps all the things else.