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Gopinath Pandurang Munde (64), Union minister for rural development, known as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s strongman in Maharashtra, died on Tuesday in a road accident in Delhi.
He had taken oath as the minister on May 26 and told his supporters that it was a great opportunity for him to serve the people as part of the Narendra Modi-led government. His death leaves a huge vacuum in state and national politics. He led BJP’s election campaign in Maharashtra and was considered to be a major factor for the party getting 23 of the 43 seats in the state. The electoral ally of the party, the Shiv Sena (SS), had won 18 seats.
Munde, along with party colleague late Pramod Mahajan and Shiv Sena chief late Bal Thackeray, was the architect of the BJP-SS alliance, which ruled the state during 1995-99. Besides being the deputy chief minister in the alliance government, he held portfolios such as energy, home and irrigation ministries.
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He is also considered responsible for turning the Brahmin-dominated state unit of the party to one comprising all the sections of society. He belonged to Vanjari, a backward caste. Munde slogged day in and day out for strengthening the party after he was made the state president.
But his rise from a local self-government member in the under-developed Beed district in Marathwada to a Union Cabinet minister was due to hard work, commitment to the party and support from a cross section of people.
After Maratha strongman and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Munde was recognised as a mass leader having friends in political parties and organisations.
Born on December 12, 1949 in a farmer’s family in Nathra, a small hamlet near Parli, Munde pursued higher studies in Pune. He came into contact with late Vilasrao Deshmukh while studying law. Deshmukh, a Congress veteran, was chief minister twice. Despite being in opposite camps, Munde and Deshmukh remained friends.
Munde’s association with Mahajan, a native of Ambajogai, near his hometown, brought revolutionary changes in his life. Munde was first elected to the Maharashtra Assembly in 1980 and represented Renapur constituency in Beed district till 2009, except in 1985 when he was defeated.
Munde came under the spotlight after he projected himself as a strong opponent of Pawar in the early 90s. He was at the forefront of raising the contentious issue of criminalisation of politics and the alleged nexus between politics and builders. During his tenure as the leader of opposition in 1992-95, Munde worked hard to put the Congress government on the defensive. During his whirlwind Sangharsh Yatra, he addressed more than 150 meetings, exposing various scams of the Congress-led government.
The defeat of the BJP-SS government in the 1999 elections did not derail Munde. Munde became the grouping’s leader in the Assembly.
Twice he staged a rebellion to assert his position in the party, only to toe the party line after the intervention of L K Advani.
Munde was later appointed the BJP’s national vice-president. In 2009, he won his first Lok Sabha election by defeating the rival NCP candidate. A victory in the 2014 elections from Beed gave him a Union Cabinet berth, though his ambition to become the chief minister of Maharashtra remained unfulfilled.
