Munde leaves to stay ahead

So it was no surprise that Munde was seen as the natural successor to Mahajan, even though he did not have the latter’s abilities to make friends in the corporate world in the country’s financial capital and raise funds for the party or manage tough allies like the Shiv Sena.

But with Mahajan gone, Munde’s shortcomings also allowed his critics and rivals in the party to try and check his power and push their own ambitions at a time the BJP struggled for direction as a party in the opposition, both at the centre and in Maharashtra, political observers said.

A dyed-in-the-wool member of the Sangh Parivar, Munde’s rise to the top was incremental. Born into a farming family in Nathra village in Beed district of Maharashtra, 58-year-old Munde was drawn to student union politics and became the chief of the Ambejogai unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in 1969. In 1971, he attended an RSS camp in Pune and became a swayamsevak.

Like many in the opposition in the early 1970s, he joined Jayaprakash Narayan in 1974 and was jailed for 16 months during the emergency along with his close friend Pramod Mahajan. The friends became brothers-in-law after Munde married Mahajan’s sister Pradnya.

The post-Emergency years saw Munde spread his wings and grow roots in the party. After becoming the chief of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1977, he was elected to the Beed Zilla Parishad in 1979 and later as MLA in 1980. He became the youngest state president of the BJP in 1986 and was re-elected for a second term while also returning to the assembly without a break since 1990. He was leader of the opposition from 1991 to 1995 and became deputy chief minister when the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance wrested power from the Congress 1995.

A part of the success of the saffron parties in those elections was attributed to Munde’s “Sangharsh Yatra” that began in Shivneri (Pune) and concluded at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park after covering about 300 tehsils. The campaign saw Munde highlighting poor governance, criminalisation of politics and the “failure” of then chief minister Sharad Pawar on several fronts.

That campaign, in part, established Munde’s stature as the BJP leader with the largest following in the state with the ability to draw crowds. Having firmly carved out his own bastion in the politically crucial belt of Marathwada, he also runs sugar cooperatives and has a substantial hold on the region on par with some Maratha leaders in the Congress or NCP.

As deputy chief minister though, Munde achieved little that could be termed as spectacular and he is remembered more for his statements about threatening to dump the Enron project in the sea and a promise to drag underworld don Dawood Ibrahim back to India than anything else.

Munde’s supporters blame his troubles in the party in the last two years to caste politics. They say that Brahmins in the party and Marathas in the state cannot accept the rise of a powerful OBC leader.

Last year, Munde’s presence at the birthday celebrations of another OBC leader, Chhagan Bhujbal of the NCP, had created a stir in political circles and triggered speculation that the two, along with other OBC leaders, would float a new party.

Political observers say that while his decision to quit as general-secretary may in all likelihood be a pressure tactic, the BJP’s central leadership would have to tread carefully as the party needs him in Maharashtra. That Munde is clearly in a mood to flex his muscles can be seen in his plan to go on a Samvaad Yatra across the state—like the one he went on before the 1995 polls—after the budget session of the state assembly ends on April 25, they add.