Pankaja Munde denied Maharashtra Legislative Council ticket

On being asked about Munde’s exclusion, state BJP head said that the party high command takes decisions on candidature

Late BJP stalwart Gopinath Munde’s daughter and former minister Pankaja Munde, who had lost the 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls, has been denied a nomination to the Maharashtra Legislative Council.

For the 10 vacancies to Maharashtra Legislative Council, the BJP which has 106 seats and support of a dozen independents and smaller political parties, fielded five candidates.

On being asked about Munde’s exclusion, state BJP president Chandrakant Patil said that the party high command takes decisions on candidature. “However, she is a BJP secretary and in-charge of Madhya Pradesh, which is a very big state,” he said, adding that he himself and Fadnavis tried to get a ticket for her. “The party would have some plans in future,” he said.

The electoral college is 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. The candidates are Pravin Darekar, Prof. Ram Shinde, Shrikant Bharatiya, Prasad Lad and Uma Khapre.

Darekar was earlier the Leader of Opposition in the Upper House. Khapre is the Maharashtra unit president of BJP Mahila Morcha.

Prof. Shinde was the Water Conservation Minister in the erstwhile BJP-Shiv Sena government, however, he lost the Assembly elections from Karjat-Jamkhed in Ahmednagar district to NCP leader Rohit Pawar, the grand-nephew of party supremo Sharad Pawar.

Bharatiya was OSD to former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, a national executive member of BJP Kisan Morcha and War Room Head of Maharashtra Election 2014.

Lad is close to Fadnavis and he played a key role in securing a dozen MLAs from Karnataka and organising their stay in Mumbai when the BJP toppled the H D Kumaraswamy government.

Munde, who was the Rural Development Minister in Fadnavis-government, lost the family seat of Parli in Beed district to her cousin and NCP leader Dhananjay Munde, who is now the Social Justice Minister in the MVA government.