Wednesday, Jun 04, 2014
Mumbai: Gopinath Munde, 64, the late BJP strongman from Maharashtra and former union minister of rural development, was given an emotional and tearful farewell with full state honours in his hometown after he died following an accident in Delhi on Tuesday morning.
Crowds of mourners and party supporters surged into the Vaijnath sugar factory grounds in the afternoon at Parli, Beed district, where Munde was to address a victory rally at a site just some distance away. Even as Munde’s body was brought from Mumbai to Latur and then to Parli by his wife Pradnya, three daughters, family members and BJP leaders, the waiting mourners were overcome with grief and tried to go near the casket to have a last glimpse of their leader. Despite all the security arrangements, controlling the crowds became a challenge for security personnel who were forced to baton charge since the people kept rushing forward.
Eventually, it was Pankaja, the eldest daughter of Munde, an MLA from Parli, who appealed to the people to remain calm and stand wherever they were. She lit the funeral pyre amid roars of “Gopinath Munde amar rahe” and “Munde sahib parat ya” (Munde Sir, come again). Women seated separately waited from early morning cried bitterly and kept saying there was no leader to care for them now.
Chaos continued at the funeral when some sections of the restless crowd did not allow several ministers of the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party to reach the venue and instead demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the accident which claimed Munde’s life. The angry supporters alleged conspiracy and shouted slogans. They also surrounded Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s car when he was heading to a helipad in Beed. Home Minister R R Patil, Congress state chief Manikrao Thakre, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray and others travelled in an aircraft together to attend the funeral.
On Tuesday evening, Munde’s body was brought from Delhi to his Mumbai home in Worli where relatives, friends and close acquaintances besides VIPs paid their respects.
Belonging to a backward class community, Munde began his political career as a student leader to become the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra in 1995 when the Sena-BJP came to power. It was just some days back that he was sworn in as the union development minister in the Narendra Modi government at an impressive ceremony in Delhi.
Munde’s death has created a huge vacuum in Maharashtra’s politics particularly for BJP which does not have a charismatic and grass roots leader like him. It would be tough for the party to drum up support for the Sena-BJP alliance considering that state assembly elections are just four months away. Munde was seen as a formidable contender for the chief minister’s post. Even though the Sena had recently announced that they had nominated Uddhav as the next CM, Munde had tactfully avoided the controversy saying that the two parties had to sit and work out their strategy for the assembly polls and nothing was decided.
By Pamela Raghunath?Correspondent
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