For Munde, all8217;s fair in power war

PARLI, SEPT 3: Parli-Vaijnath in Beed district is home to one of 12 sacred jyotirlings in the country. The religiosity or spirituality ha...

PARLI, SEPT 3: Parli-Vaijnath in Beed district is home to one of 12 sacred jyotirlings in the country. The religiosity or spirituality has hardly been a hindrance to the unparalleled growth of muscle-power and planned lawlessness. It might have even have been dealt with but for Gopinath Munde lording over it. The instances given below highlight how the Deputy Chief Minister has misused his powers to tilt the power balance in favour of the BJP here.

During the last municipal elections in Parli-Vaijanth the BJP won barely 14 of the 29 seats. In the ideal situation, the party should have sat in the Opposition. But Munde ensured that his younger brother Pandit Anna became the municipal chief.

In the Beed zilla parishad elections held recently, the BJP failed to get a clear majority but Munde wanted his partyman at the helm. Overnight, the Aurangabad-Beed highway was swarming with police who simply accosted a councillor on his way to Beed and registered false, petty cases against him. The numberstilted in BJP8217;s favour.

Badamrao Pandit was elected as an Independent MLA from Gevrai in the district. Munde helped him get a ministerial berth in the Maharashtra cabinet. Full of beans, he beat up an executive engineer of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board MSEB who reportedly refused to give in to his demands. The police only made a technical8217; arrest of Pandit and let him off. Munde incidentally holds the energy portfolio too.

By far the most serious set of offences 8212; and a clear exploitation of one8217;s position 8212; are recorded against Vimal Mundada. A gutsy woman, she decided to take on Munde8217;s might right here in his fiefdom. Elected from Kaij constituency, Mundada has borne the brunt of his fury. She was attacked, a whisper campaign was launched against her and even her family made to suffer. Mundada is now fighting in Kaij on the Nationalist Congress Party ticket that party chief Sharad Pawar was only too pleased to give her. During her campaign in village Sakul, her jeep wasattacked with stones and abused, allegedly by Munde8217;s strongmen, one of whom was a former sarpanch. The driver and a few others received injuries but Mundada was saved because she was not in the jeep.

Munde dismisses all this as political conspiracy against him but he is the de facto power here. Locals say how Pandit Anna calls the shots, how his supporters are allegedly involved in every conceivable crime. 8220;Extortion, eve-teasing, kidnapping, goondaism 8212; they haven8217;t spared even rickshaw-pullers and small-time vendors,8221; says Janardhan Vithal Gade, college lecturer here. Even hawkers speak of the hotline that connects Pandit Anna8217;s home with Parli police station. 8220;What8217;s the use of filing complaints,8221; asks the father of a girl allegedly molested by BJP partyworkers.

In the midst of this, a Rs 30 crore water supply scheme is still a distant dream. Worried that he may finally have to pay the price this election 8212; his best chance to become chief minister 8212; Munde is leaving nothing to chance. As if hisown track-record was not enough, Nationalist Congress Party8217;s TP Munde and Congress8217; Panditrao Daund 8212; who defeated the Deputy Chief Minister once 8212; are giving Munde quite a few sleepless nights. No wonder then that Munde is virtually camping here despite earlier assertions that he would not spend more than one day a week. Also no wonder that he along with brother-in-law and Union Information and Broadcasting minister Pramod Mahajan persuaded Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to modify his schedule and address a meeting in the area last week.

To top it all, anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare, who first embarrassed Munde three years by exposing his relationship with tamasha artiste Barkha, homed in on Parli-Vaijnath this week asking people to elect clean8217; candidates. Ironically, Munde8217;s election speeches are replete with instances of his taking on Mumbai8217;s underworld. People nod their heads at both meetings and wonder what kind of violence they will see on September 5 when the district votes.