Why dhananjay Munde Resigned From Devendra Fadnavis's Cabinet


Almost 3 months after the brutal torture and homicide of a sarpanch in his district, senior nationalist congress party (NCP) chief and maharashtra  meals and civil components minister dhananjay Munde has resigned from the Devendra Fadnavis-led cabinet.


On december 9, Santosh Deshmukh, the sarpanch (village head) of Massajog village in Beed's Kaij taluka, was  abducted and murdered after he allegedly resisted extortion attempts targeted at a windmill business enterprise in his vicinity. Walmik Karad, who is allegedly Munde's close aide and the person visible as his enforcer in

Beed, was booked in the Rs 2 crore extortion case filed days after the homicide.


Munde is an mla from Parli Vaijanath in Beed district. Nine people, including Karad, have been arrested for the two crimes, while some

other accused are at large. In a humiliation for the police, Karad, who had been missing for days, surrendered at the workplace of the criminal investigation branch (CID) in pune on december 31, rather than being nabbed  via the law enforcement agencies.


Munde's resignation on february four came after gory pictures of brutal torture came to light and caused outrage. In a single image, an assailant is purportedly seen urinating on Deshmukh's  face. The motion pictures and pictures are part of the charge sheet submitted by the CID in a Beed courtroom last week.


The assailants are accused of recording 15 videos, clicking eight pictures, and making video calls all  through the torture. Deshmukh was beaten with the aid of the accused using a gas pipe, a white pipe, an iron rod with 5 grab wires, wood sticks, and a knuckle-duster, as per the rate sheet.


Fadnavis, deputy chief minister  Ajit Pawar, Munde, and senior ncp leaders praful patel and sunil Tatkare held a meeting past due on the night of february 3, in which fadnavis is stated to have directed Munde to stop. The following morning, Munde  sent his resignation to fadnavis through an aide. Munde published on the social media platform X that he had given up on grounds of judgment of right and wrong and because of health reasons.


The homicide had come as a  chief embarrassment for the Mahayuti authorities after its landslide victory in the assembly elections last November, in which it swept 237 of the 288 seats.


The rate in opposition to Munde was led with the aid of bjp MLA

and previous minister Suresh Dhas, who additionally hails from Beed. Dhas launched a fusillade of fees in opposition to Munde, Karad, and ncp leaders in what grew to become out to be a major lack of face for the ruling  alliance. Even while accusing Munde of malfeasance, Dhas charged that a meeting among Karad and the officers of the windmill enterprise changed into held at Munde's official residence 'Satpuda' at Malabar Hill in Mumbai, wherein a deal turned into struck.


Competition leaders, such as ncp (Sharadchandra Pawar) MLAs Jitendra Awhad and sandeep Kshirsagar, Beed mp Bajrang Sonwane, and social activist anjali Damania, had  additionally taken on Munde.


Dhas has, but, called for a supplementary rate sheet inside the case and reiterated his allegation about the meeting with officers of the windmill business enterprise at Munde's respectable  bungalow. He additionally claimed that many such instances like that of Deshmukh might come to mind. The competition has referred to Munde as being booked as an accused in the homicide. Deshmukh became a sales  space-level functionary of the BJP.


Namita Mundada, the bjp mla from Kaij, has called for the accused inside the case to be given capital punishment and stated that Munde ought to have resigned an awful lot in advance.


The debate additionally took on robust casteist shades. Whilst Munde and Karad belong to the effective Vanjari network, which is part of the OBC (different Backward Instructions) category, Dhas is a maratha as changed  into Deshmukh. The Vanjaris and Marathas are locked in a war for dominance in Beed and elements of Marathwada.


Maratha leader Manoj Jarange-Patil has lashed out at Munde in protests in opposition to Deshmukh's  homicide. Senior ncp leaders declare that Dhas was being propped up with the aid of the bjp leadership to emerge as a maratha chief within the Marathwada location, which Beed district is a part of, and devour into  Jarange-Patil's area. An upward rise in Dhas' political profile and nearby heft might also erode the dominance of the Munde cousins—Dhananjay and Pankaja Munde, the state surroundings minister and daughter of the late  BJP veteran Gopinath Munde—in Beed.


Inside the lok sabha and assembly elections, Jarange-Patil, who has support in a phase of maratha youngsters due to his agitation in search of OBC quotas for the dominant  community, had taken a function towards the BJP. OBC leader Laxman Hake had released a counter-mobilization, claiming that at the same time as the perpetrators of the crime should be punished, trying to make a  "political scapegoat" out of an OBC leader like Munde must be decried. The ncp is visible as a party of the Marathas, and Munde is one of its leading OBC faces, creating a catch-22 situation of types for the birthday  celebration high command.

 

 

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Sudha Subbiah

05/03/2025 01:36 PM