Mumbai: An ambitious leader, once a strong aspirant of the chief ministerial post and State’s minister for women and child, Pankaja Munde, has taken a dig at Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis over the Maratha reservation issue. She remarked that if the file of reservation quota had been on her table, she would have cleared it in a jiffy.
According to political observers, Munde is deftly playing on Maratha sentiments and making it out that she is the ‘true mass leader’ and the ‘chief minister that is in the people’s mind’. Pankaja, the daughter of BJP leader late Gopinath Munde, is still in the race for the CM’s post and has never hidden her ‘dream’. In May 2015, while speaking at Pune, Pankaja had said, I don’t know whether I will become the CM. I am also not sure whether I would remain a minister. But, it is pleasing that wherever I go, people say that I should become the Chief Minister.”
On Thursday, while speaking with pro-Maratha reservationists at Parli, her constituency in Beed district, Pankaja said, “Had the file of Maratha reservation been on my table, I would not have delayed it even for a moment. This issue is being delayed as it is pending in the High Court.” Her statement might worsen her relations with CM Fadnavis as he is not happy with her performance after the Chikki scam erupted in media.
Fadnavis had hit back and divested Pankaja of the portfolio of water conservation when she was on way to Singapore to attend the world summit on water. She had then tweeted that she won’t attend the summit as she was no longer the minister of concerned department. However, Fadnavis had instructed her through tweets that she must attend, being a senior minister of Maharashtra.
Pankaja is also unhappy with Fadnavis as she was expecting that the portfolio of Other Backward Class and Mantralaya would be assigned to her. Instead, Fadnavis handed over the charge of the new ministry to the junior minister Ram Shinde, who is a follower of Pankaja and a close confidant of the late Munde. Pankaja’s veiled criticism of Fadnavis comes in the backdrop of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut’s claim that there were “talks within the BJP” to replace the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.