Ignore Pankaja Munde, says BJP-supported RS MP

TNN Bureau. Updated: 12/13/2019 6:45:38 PM National

Pune (Maharashtra), Dec 13 (IANS) Prominent realtor Sanjay Kakade, a Bharatiya Janata Party-supported Rajya Sabha MP, on Friday asked the party to simply ignore former minister Pankaja Munde-Palwe as she has no support base left in her own stronghold of Beed.

"She couldn't safeguard her own small (assembly) constituency. Despite being a politician for many years and serving as minister for five years, she lost by some 30,000 votes," said Kakade, slamming Pankaja.

His sharp comments came against the backdrop of the huge show of strength organised by Pankaja Munde on Thursday, to mark the 70th birth anniversary of her father, former union minister Gopinath Munde, at Gopinathgad.

At the public meeting, the defiant Pankaja attacked the BJP state leadership and dared it to sack her but made it clear that she would not quit the party.

"Her family has been in politics for over four decades, even her sister (Pritam Munde) is the present Beed BJP MP. On the one hand, she says the party belongs to her father who helped it to expand in Maharashtra and on the other asks the very same party to sack her. The BJP should not take her too seriously," urged Kakade.

He added that all these years, Pankaja Munde never earned the trust of any section of society, whether the Marathas, the Muslims, the OBCs, etc, and hence her utterances will make absolutely no difference to the BJP.

Kakade claimed that the people who assembled at Gopinathgad came because of their affection for the late Gopinath Munde, but if Pankaja tries to organise a similar gathering here, nobody will turn up.

"Yesterday's show was only to ensure the Munde family's relevance in state politics. But that doesn't mean they can take this opportunity to hurl allegations at others," he said.

Kakade became the first BJP-supported leader to openly react and launch an attack on Pankaja's rally in Gopinathgad where state BJP President Chandrakant Patil and other senior leaders were present.

At the rally, she announced other future plans from January 26, 2020, including setting up an office in Mumbai named after her father, a token hunger strike in Aurangabad on January 27, followed by a state-wide tour to assess the ground-level political situation.


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