Who Is Dhananjay Munde, Who Give up As Maharashtra Minister Amid Homicide Case
Mumbai:
NCP chief Dhananjay Munde stepped down Tuesday as Maharashtra’s Meals and Civil Provides Minister after his aide, Walmik Karad, was arrested in reference to the torture and homicide of a village chief in Beed district final 12 months. A “deeply saddened” Mr Munde mentioned his ‘internal voice’ had led him to supply his resignation, which Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has accepted.
In a publish on X, Mr Munde mentioned it had at all times been his demand that these responsible for the torture and killing of Santosh Deshmukh get the “harshest punishment”. He additionally claimed ailing well being – final month he mentioned he had been identified with Bell’s Palsy – as a cause for his resignation.
Sources mentioned Mr Munde resigned after a gathering with Mr Fadnavis.
Who Is Dhananjay Munde
Dhananjay Munde, 49, is the MLA from the Parli constituency in Beed district.
He’s the nephew of late BJP veteran Gopinath Munde, a well-liked chief who served as Union Minister, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, and was additionally a Lok Sabha MP.
Mr Munde’s Parli seat was shaped in 2009 and received by his cousin, the BJP’s Pankaja Munde, within the first two state elections. Within the 2019 and 2024 polls it was Mr Munde who took over; first for the undivided NCP led by Sharad Pawar after which for the NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar.
Within the earlier authorities, led by Shiv Sena boss Eknath Shinde, Dhanjay Munde served because the Agriculture Minister from July 2023 to November 2024, when the Meeting election was held.
Throughout that point he was additionally the ‘guardian minister’ for Beed district, a place that has since been given to occasion colleague Manikrao Kokate.
Mr Munde was additionally a cupboard member when Uddhav Thackeray, boss of the then-undivided Shiv Sena, was Chief Minister; Mr Thackeray led an alliance of the Sena, the (then-also undivided) NCP, and the Congress. He was then Minister for Social Justice and Particular Help.
Mr Munde has typically confronted controversial conditions in a profession spanning almost twenty years, together with expenses of rape in January 2021. These have been made by a well-liked singer however later withdrawn. Mr Munde denied all allegations and stared down the opposition’s calls to stop.
He was then a minister in Uddhav Thackeray’s cupboard.
Political Profession
Mr Munde started his profession working along with his uncle, Gopinath Munde, and serving to handle the household’s political pursuits in Beed. He additionally marked himself out as a superb orator.
Certainly, many even noticed him because the senior BJP chief’s ‘inheritor obvious’.
However that modified in 2009, after Gopinath Munde picked his daughter, Pankaja, to symbolize the household seat of Parli. Then with the BJP, the occasion supplied him a place within the Legislative Council.
However the relationship by no means actually recovered, and in 2012 he switched to the NCP, which was then led by Sharad Pawar. Mr Munde’s father, Panditrao Munde, made the identical bounce months earlier than.
Dhananjay Munde contested the 2014 election towards his cousin however misplaced. He regrouped and returned 5 years later, flipping a defeat by 26,000 votes right into a victory by greater than 40,000.
In 2023 he sided with Ajit Pawar in his rise up towards his uncle and NCP founder Sharad Pawar. The youthful Pawar was reportedly eager on signing Mr Munde on to diversify his NCP faction’s id as greater than a Maratha-centric political outfit.
In return, Mr Munde has been seen as an Ajit Pawar loyalist.
The Sarpanch Homicide Fallout
Walmik Karad, the prime accused within the torture and homicide of the sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh, is a confidante of Mr Munde, and it was that closeness that gave the opposition sufficient ammunition to press for the NCP chief’s sacking.
READ | Crime, Clout, Caste: In-Between Sarpanch Homicide And Minister’s Exit
Sources mentioned that after particulars of the police case have been made public Mr Fadnavis met Ajit Pawar to debate the potential fallout of that hyperlink and, ultimately, Mr Munde was requested to stop.
READ | “Prepared If…”: Dhananjay Munde On Give up Calls Amid Homicide Case
As controversy over the sarpanch’s homicide grew, in January Mr Munde mentioned he would haven’t any downside resigning if requested to, both by Mr Fadnavis or Mr Pawar. “If Chief Minister Fadnavis or Deputy Chief Minister Pawar imagine I’m responsible… they need to ask for my resignation. I’m able to step down.”
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