After warding off allegations across the homicide of a sarpanch in Beed and calls for for his resignation for 3 months, NCP Meals and Civil Provides Minister Dhananjay Munde lastly stepped down on Tuesday.
The resignation got here a day after the primary Funds Session of the brand new Mahayuti authorities, elected in November 2024, started Monday. The will of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to start out on a contemporary notice was one of many causes behind Munde relenting on calls for for his dismissal.
There are others.
* Munde’s place was extra untenable than ever
Munde has been going through the warmth since his shut aide Walmik Karad was named within the brutal homicide of the sarpanch of Massajong village in Beed, Santosh Deshmukh, in December final yr. Karad is accused of attempting to extort cash from an influence firm, main allegedly to an altercation with Deshmukh and his homicide.
Just lately, police filed a chargesheet naming Karad within the case, giving a contemporary impetus to stress in opposition to Munde, although there isn’t a direct proof linking the NCP chief to the homicide. Rivals additionally level to the truth that Beed is – and has lengthy been – a Munde stronghold.
On Monday, NDTV Marathi put out photographs purportedly exhibiting Deshmukh being brutally tortured by a gaggle of youths, earlier than his dying, placing Munde once more beneath the highlight.
There was solely a lot Munde’s celebration NCP might have pushed again on his behalf given its place because the junior-most accomplice within the ruling coalition. With Munde’s resignation, the Mahayuti authorities has largely defused the disaster and wrested a potent weapon from the Opposition, whereas the NCP has earned some brownie factors with the BJP at a time when their third accomplice, Shiv Sena, has hit a tough patch.
The Mahayuti and the NCP are additionally grappling with one other case involving one other NCP minister, Manikrao Kokate. The Agriculture Minister was not too long ago convicted for 2 years on prices of tampering paperwork to accumulate two flats. Kokate has moved an enchantment in opposition to the conviction.
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* This wasn’t Munde’s first brush with controversy
The nephew of the late BJP stalwart Gopinath Munde, Dhananjay Munde’s political trajectory has been marked by a collection of non-public controversies, together with allegations of rape (which have been later withdrawn). His title has additionally been talked about in reference to a home violence dispute, with a court docket in Mumbai giving an interim order that went in opposition to him final month.
Earlier, Munde was concerned in a public combat with niece and Gopinath Munde’s daughter Pankaja over the political legacy of her father. In 2013, Munde resigned from the BJP and contested the 2014 Meeting elections from Parli as an NCP candidate. Whereas Pankaja received this spherical, by over 25,000 votes, 5 years later, Munde wrested the seat. Later, following the rapprochement between the BJP and NCP, he secured the Parli seat by a margin of 1.4 lakh votes.
* The caste dynamics
The underlying layer to the Deshmukh case is the rising Maratha-non Maratha divide in Maharashtra politics. Deshmukh was a Maratha, whereas lots of the people named in his homicide have ties to Munde’s Vanjari group, which is a sub-caste inside OBCs.
Whereas Beed has been a stronghold of the Munde household, the Maratha group wields appreciable political affect within the space.
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One of the vociferous voices in opposition to Munde within the case has been Suresh Dhas, a outstanding Maratha chief, even if he belongs to ally BJP. Influential Maratha figures like Manoj Jarange Patil, who has been main the agitation for a quota for Marathas, have additionally framed the homicide when it comes to caste dynamics.
The BJP is susceptible on the Maratha entrance because of the quota demand, with Fadnavis himself a Brahmin. The failure to safe Munde’s resignation might have additional fuelled Maratha anger in opposition to the celebration.
* The ‘delay’ in performing in opposition to Munde
Taking up because the CM on December 9 final yr, following a landslide victory for the Mahayuti and the BJP specifically, Fadnavis had promised a clear authorities, accountable to the folks, with zero tolerance for corruption and crime.
The longer Munde continued within the Cupboard the extra problematic it was for Fadnavis, who because the Residence Minister was additionally the face of each law-and-order lapse. Most not too long ago, the Mahayuti authorities got here beneath assault over the Pune bus-stand rape, whereas earlier than this was the high-profile assault on actor Saif Ali Khan.
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Many, together with throughout the BJP, argue that Fadnavis ought to have exercised his powers as CM and Residence Minister to demand Munde’s resignation two months in the past – incomes him the ethical excessive floor, an opportunity that was misplaced.
Formally, Fadnavis maintained: “If there may be proof to substantiate prices of corruption and crime, motion might be taken in opposition to ministers. No one, nevertheless highly effective, will get away.”
NCP (SP) chief Rohit Pawar stated: “Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar had all of the details about the Deshmukh case. They’d have seen how barbaric the crime was. My query is, ‘Did it not unsettle them? Did it not damage their conscience?’. At present, they’ve sought Munde’s resignation due to stress from the Opposition and the general public outcry… However how can anyone justify the affiliation of a minister with perpetrators of a criminal offense for thus lengthy?”
Congress chief Nana Patole echoed Rohit. “Had the CM taken a suo motu choice instantly, we’d have hailed his management. However that is clearly an afterthought, bowing to stress from the Opposition and the folks.”
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Congress, NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders additionally declare that not like the Mahayuti authorities, their Maha Vikas Aghadi regime had taken fast motion in related instances, whether or not prices in opposition to then residence minister Anil Deshmukh or in opposition to Sena chief Sanjay Rathod.
Defending Fadnavis, a senior BJP functionary stated coalition politics in addition to the necessity to stability each Maratha and OBC sentiments tied his palms. “Any hasty choice would have had bigger ramifications, unleashing social unrest throughout Marathwada.” One other chief stated: “Right here the minister in query belonged to the NCP. Had it been a BJP minister, motion would have been taken inside 48 hours.”
A extremely positioned supply stated: “When the sarpanch homicide photographs (which had been circulating on social media) first got here to gentle, there was no ambiguity that some robust motion was needed… Nonetheless, there was a pause over how the Jarange-Patil led agitation would achieve from it. So the federal government, citing the continuing probe, took time to let the caste tensions subside.”
State BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule stated the federal government caught to a course of. “The CM instantly arrange an SIT/CID probe. Our stand was constant, that we are going to take motion primarily based on proof.”
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Pankaja Munde, who can be a minister within the Fadnavis authorities, nevertheless, sided with the Opposition on the timing of her cousin’s resignation. PTI reported that talking to reporters on the sidelines of a programme in Nagpur, Pankaja stated: “I welcome the resignation. He (Munde) ought to have resigned earlier, it might have been higher that manner. He would have discovered a dignified manner out of all this struggling… (However) Higher late than by no means.”
She additionally raised the “struggling” of the Deshmukh household. “Once we take up a publish, we should always consider each individual of the state as equal. The choice to resign is nothing in comparison with the ache and struggling of the Deshmukh household,” Pankaja stated.
