After fending off allegations around the murder of a sarpanch in Beed and demands for his resignation for three months, NCP Food and Civil Supplies Minister Dhananjay Munde finally stepped down on Tuesday.
There are others.
Munde has been facing the heat since his close aide Walmik Karad was named in the brutal murder of the sarpanch of Massajong village in Beed, Santosh Deshmukh, in December last year. Karad is accused of trying to extort money from a power company, leading allegedly to an altercation with Deshmukh and his murder.
Recently, police filed a chargesheet naming Karad in the case, giving a fresh impetus to pressure against Munde, though there is no direct evidence linking the NCP leader to the murder. Rivals also point to the fact that Beed is – and has long been – a Munde stronghold.
On Monday, several Marathi channels put out photos purportedly showing Deshmukh being brutally tortured by a group of youths, before his death, putting Munde again under the spotlight.
There was only so much Munde’s party NCP could have pushed back on his behalf given its position as the junior-most partner in the ruling coalition. With Munde’s resignation, the Mahayuti government has largely defused the crisis and wrested a potent weapon from the Opposition, while the NCP has earned some brownie points with the BJP at a time when their third partner, Shiv Sena, has hit a rough patch.
The Mahayuti and the NCP are also grappling with another case involving another NCP minister, Manikrao Kokate. The Agriculture Minister was recently convicted for two years on charges of tampering documents to acquire two flats. Kokate has moved an appeal against the conviction.
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trajectory has been marked by a series of personal controversies, including allegations of rape (which were later withdrawn). His name has also been mentioned in connection with a domestic violence dispute, with a court in Mumbai giving an interim order that went against him last month.
Earlier, Munde was involved in a public fight 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 Assembly elections from Parli as an NCP candidate. While Pankaja won this round, by over 25,000 votes, five 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 growing Maratha-non Maratha divide in Maharashtra politics. Deshmukh was a Maratha, while many of the individuals named in his murder have ties to Munde’s Vanjari community, which is a sub-caste within OBCs.
While Beed has been a stronghold of the Munde family, the Maratha community wields considerable political influence in the area.
One of the most vociferous voices against Munde in the case has been Suresh Dhas, a prominent Maratha leader, despite the fact that he belongs to ally BJP. Influential Maratha figures like Manoj Jarange Patil, who has been leading the agitation for a quota for Marathas, have also framed the murder in terms of caste dynamics.
The BJP is vulnerable on the Maratha front due to the quota demand, with Fadnavis himself a Brahmin. The failure to secure Munde’s resignation could have further fuelled Maratha anger against the party.
The ‘delay’ in acting against Munde
Taking over as the CM on December 5 last year, following a landslide victory for the Mahayuti and the BJP in particular, Fadnavis had promised a transparent government, accountable to the people, with zero tolerance for corruption and crime.
The longer Munde continued in the Cabinet the more problematic it was for Fadnavis, who as the Home Minister was also the face of every law-and-order lapse. Most recently, the Mahayuti government came under attack over the Pune bus-stand rape, while before this was the high-profile attack on actor Saif Ali Khan.
Many, including within the BJP, argue that Fadnavis should have exercised his powers as CM and Home Minister to demand Munde’s resignation two months ago – earning him the moral high ground, a chance that was lost.
Officially, Fadnavis maintained: “If there is evidence to substantiate charges of corruption and crime, action will be taken against ministers. Nobody, however powerful, will get away.”
NCP (SP) leader Rohit Pawar said: “Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar had all the information about the Deshmukh case. They would have seen how barbaric the crime was. My question is, ‘Did it not unsettle them? Did it not hurt their conscience?’. Today, they have sought Munde’s resignation because of pressure from the Opposition and the public outcry… But how can anybody justify the association of a minister with perpetrators of a crime for so long?”
Congress leader Nana Patole echoed Rohit. “Had the CM taken a suo motu decision immediately, we would have hailed his leadership. But this is clearly an afterthought, bowing to pressure from the Opposition and the people.”
Congress, NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders also claim that unlike the Mahayuti government, their Maha Vikas Aghadi regime had taken quick action in similar cases, whether charges against then home minister Anil Deshmukh or against Sena leader Sanjay Rathod.
Defending Fadnavis, a senior BJP functionary said coalition politics as well as the need to balance both Maratha and OBC sentiments tied his hands. “Any hasty decision would have had larger ramifications, unleashing social unrest across Marathwada.” Another leader said: “Here the minister in question belonged to the NCP. Had it been a BJP minister, action would have been taken within 48 hours.”
A highly placed source said: “When the sarpanch murder photos (which had been circulating on social media) first came to light, there was no ambiguity that some tough action was necessary… However, there was a pause over how the Jarange-Patil led agitation would gain from it. So the government, citing the ongoing probe, took time to let the caste tensions subside.”
State BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule said the government stuck to a process. “The CM immediately set up an SIT/CID probe. Our stand was consistent, that we will take action based on evidence.”
Pankaja Munde, who is also a minister in the Fadnavis government, however, sided with the Opposition on the timing of her cousin’s resignation. PTI reported that speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a programme in Nagpur, Pankaja said: “I welcome the resignation. He (Munde) should have resigned earlier, it would have been better that way. He would have found a dignified way out of all this suffering… (But) Better late than never.”
She also raised the “suffering” of the Deshmukh family. “When we take up a post, we should think of every person of the state as equal. The decision to resign is nothing compared to the pain and suffering of the Deshmukh family,” Pankaja said.
With Munde’s resignation, the Mahayuti government has largely defused the crisis and wrested a potent weapon from the Opposition. (PTI file photo) 
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