If on May 3, 2006 it lost a master-strategist in the death of its senior leader Pramod Mahajan, the BJP has now lost the party’s only mass leader in Maharashtra in the passing away of Union Rural Development Minister Gopinath Munde.
A powerful orator, OBC face of his party in Maharashtra, and former Deputy Chief Minister Munde was to lead a resurgent BJP in the 2014 State Assembly polls. And if the “Maha-Yuti” (grand alliance) were to capture power, Munde — given the good relations he had enjoyed with late Bal Thackeray and an excellent rapport with current Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray — would have stood a better chance than anyone else within the BJP to emerge as a consensus candidate for the Chief Minister’s post.
Ironically enough, the prospect of Munde realising his dream of becoming the first BJP Chief Minister of Maharashtra was crudely dealt a deadly blow on Tuesday morning, when he died of a cardiac arrest after a road accident in New Delhi.
Munde, who had emerged out of the shadows of his late brother-in-law Pramod Mahajan and had become his party’s deputy leader in the lok Sabha after the 2009 polls, was one of the brightest politicians that Maharashtra produced during the last three decades, the other two being late Vilasrao Deshmukh and Mahajan.
like veteran Maratha leader Sharad Pawar, who has been around for more than four decades, and Vilasrao, Munde had a pan-Maharashtra image. A strong political adversary of the Maratha leader, Munde became a name to reckon with in Maharashtra political circles in the run-up to the 1995 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, 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.
Munde had come a long way since his days as ordinary village boy, born in a farmer’s family — in Nathra village in Beed district of the backward Marathwada region in Maharashtra — which had no political background. He took to student politics while he was doing his graduation in Commerce in a college at Ambejogai. While in college, he befriended Pramod Mahajan, his senior, and the latter’s younger sister Pradnya — whom he made his life partner in the subsequent years.
Beginning as the Ambejogai unit chief of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in 1969, Munde became a RSS volunteer two years later. In 1974, he became a part of the Jayaprakash Narayan-led movement and he was imprisoned for 16 months during the Emergency along with Mahajan.
A person from the backward Vanjara community, Munde went on to marry Munde’s sister Pradnya, a Brahmin, after the 1978 Assembly polls. Having excelled as the chief of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1977 and become a member of Beed Zilla Parishad two years later, Munde made it to the Maharashtra Assembly in 1980. Munde became the youngest Maharashtra BJP president in 1986 and he had one more term subsequently as the State party chief.
What made Munde more powerful within the State BJP was the advent of the NDA Government at the Centre in the late nineties and the presence of Mahajan in the Union Cabinet. With Mahajan wielding considerable power both within the Government and the BJP, Munde made most of the situation to consolidate his position within his State party set-up.
As the then State Home Minister, Munde contributed in a big way in controlling organised crime in Mumbai. At a time when the metropolis came under the iron grip of the underworld, who thrived on handing extortion threats to moneyed people from different walks of life and killing those who failed to oblige them, Munde gave a free hand to “encounter-specialists” of the Mumbai police, who went virtually for the kill, eliminated scores of gangsters and broke the very back of the once-powerful underworld.
However, after the untimely death of Mahajan in May 2006, his clout within the BJP began to erode. In April 2008, he raised a banner of revolt against the central BJP leadership after he felt aggrieved for having been “sidelined” by the State and central party leaderships.
After resigning from all the party posts, Munde charged that the party did not function democratically both at the State and central levels. He even orchestrated a show of strength by his party legislators and district unit presidents, championed the cause of OBCs in the State and hobnobbed with leaders of rival political parties in a bid to chart a new course for himself. He, however, came around in three days, after the party leadership appeased him by agreeing to hear him out.
All the same, during those eventful three days of the last week of April 2008, Munde’s stock went up substantially within the BJP leadership so much so that the Shiv Sena’s official mouth-piece “Saamna” heaped praise on him for “having brought the central BJP leadership to its knees”. It was during that time that Munde openly aired his differences with senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari. However, after the 2009 polls, Munde calmed down after the BJP appointed him as the party’s deputy leader in the lok Sabha.
Munde, who is survived by wife Pradnya and three daughters --- Pankaja, Pritam and Yashashri, enjoyed good relations with political leaders of all hues in the State. After his death, the second rung of leaders, headed by current State BJP president Devendra Fadnavis, will play an active role in the party’s electioneering for the 2014 Assembly polls.
Being the senior-most leader in the BJP, Nitin Gadkari will have a major say in the State party affairs. One should not be surprised if at some stage in future, Gadkari --- currently in the Union Cabinet --- makes a bid for the Chief Minister’s post in the State.