Carrying forward the political legacy of her father who was killed in a road mishap in New Delhi on June 3, senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde’s daughter Pankaja Palve-Munde will embark upon a 14-day “Sangarsha Yatra” akin to his 1995 tour which contributed to the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance capturing power for the first time in Maharashtra.
Giving the details of the yatra to be undertaken by Pankaja in the run-up to the State Assembly polls scheduled for October-November this year, State BJP president Devendra Fadnavis said here on Monday that she would kick off her tour at Sindhkhed Raja in Buldhana district of eastern Maharashtra on August 27. She would then traverse through 79 Assembly constituencies in Vidarbha, Marathawada regions and parts of Western Maharastra, covering 3,000-odd km during her 14 - day tour by road.
Fadnavis said that Pankaja would undertake her yatra in two phases. “During her yatra, she will address 66 major rallies and 200 smaller rallies Senior BJP leaders from State and Centre would also join Pankaja through the yatra, in turns,” Fadnavis said, as he addressed at the BJP’s headquarters, along with party’s leader of the Opposition in the State legislative Council.
Pankaja, who is late Munde’s eldest daughter and a sitting MlA from Parli constituency in Beed district of Marathwada region, has been handed a major responsibility by the State party leadership within days after she was nominated as the party’s national secretary by new BJP President Amit Shah.
In a clear indication that she would be assigned a major role in the run-up to the State Assembly polls, Pankaja — it may be recalled — had been inducted into the core group of the State BJP within a couple weeks after her father’s untimely death.
Pankaja, who lit the funeral pyre of her father at a cremation in Mundes’ home town on June 3, had managed her father’s campaign in the 2009 and 2014 lok Sabha polls. In the recently ended 2014 election, Pankaja had campaigned more intensely for Sr Munde than the father himself.
A good orator, 31-year-old Pankaja has taken a cue from her late father while charting a new course for herself after the death of Sr Munde,
A strong political adversary of Maratha leader, Sr Munde had become a name to reckon with in the State political circles in the run-up to the 1995 State Assembly polls, as he took Pawar — the then Congress Chief Minister of Maharashtra — head on, by making allegations of corruption and links with the underworld against the latter.
In fact, Sr Munde’s aggressive campaign was one of the major factors that brought the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance to power in the state in 1995. No wonder that Munde became the deputy Chief Minister of the State in the Sena-BJP Government that ruled the State between 1995 and 1999.