How would I describe Gopinath Munde, who passed away today in a road accident? There are many adjectives that would describe him well but not fully.
There are so many memories of the man, the mind is cluttered. Let me capture some random thoughts here. I have seen him in countless assembly sessions, sitting on the front row, head held back and high, always but always leaning behind in his seat, chest out.
Every few minutes, he would wipe his mouth briskly and comb his hair, yes, comb his hair. This habit stayed with him for years. In the house, he spoke very well and to the point.
As deputy chief minister, he handled home as well. He was surprisingly clued in about internal security matters in a way few have been before or after him. He supported many good cops and bureaucrats much against the wishes of many in the Sena and within the BJP as well. He tried hard to get rid of illegal Bangaldeshi immigrants in the city as it was a major menace to the peace and economy of the state as well as that of the country. However, Mamta Banerjee and Ajit Panja, then in NDA government, intervened and refused to let him move.
There were times I could sense his frustration at the way his hands were ever so often tied behind his back but he would rarely confide in journalists, howmuchever some Marathi journalists like to boast that he did. He was known not to drop too many hints our way and was in fact not as media friendly as many other politicians who were always waiting to vent their grievances and share some meaty gossip about their rivals.
I cannot forget how he reacted to the news of Pramod Mahajan's death. He was shattered. Munde rode on Mahajan's stature all his political life and suddenly he found himself alone.
Though fully capable of shouldering not just his political role but also carving the Maharashtra BJP's political future, he continued to feel Mahajan's loss for a very long time. It was a rare sight to see a seasoned politician like him sobbing like a child at Mahajan's funeral. After Mahajan;s death, Munde supported his family as much as he could. He tried very hard to get Poonam Mahajan a ticket in 2009 even so much as to put his political career at stake for her. But Poonam was a political rookie with an absolutely blank slate. And there was no Modi wave at that time to bail her out.
At a recent Modi rally in Mumbai, the one person on the dais to clap when Poonam Mahajan's name was announced was Munde.
His rivalry with Nitin Gadkari made a lot of sense as the two are temperamentally different and come from different backgrounds. Munde was a grassroots, man about village, politician. He knew where his bread and butter came from, and understood politics but couldnt play it as well for some time after Mahajan's death. Mahajan had always shielded him from the harsh arclights of party politics. So, it took a struggle for Munde to come into his own, but that he did. And how. Faced with Gadkari's rising stature with Modi and the BJP's national brass, he carved out his own niche to the point that Modi made him a union minister as well.
A big loss to the BJP for sure. RIP, Gopinathji.
There are so many memories of the man, the mind is cluttered. Let me capture some random thoughts here. I have seen him in countless assembly sessions, sitting on the front row, head held back and high, always but always leaning behind in his seat, chest out.
Every few minutes, he would wipe his mouth briskly and comb his hair, yes, comb his hair. This habit stayed with him for years. In the house, he spoke very well and to the point.
As deputy chief minister, he handled home as well. He was surprisingly clued in about internal security matters in a way few have been before or after him. He supported many good cops and bureaucrats much against the wishes of many in the Sena and within the BJP as well. He tried hard to get rid of illegal Bangaldeshi immigrants in the city as it was a major menace to the peace and economy of the state as well as that of the country. However, Mamta Banerjee and Ajit Panja, then in NDA government, intervened and refused to let him move.
There were times I could sense his frustration at the way his hands were ever so often tied behind his back but he would rarely confide in journalists, howmuchever some Marathi journalists like to boast that he did. He was known not to drop too many hints our way and was in fact not as media friendly as many other politicians who were always waiting to vent their grievances and share some meaty gossip about their rivals.
I cannot forget how he reacted to the news of Pramod Mahajan's death. He was shattered. Munde rode on Mahajan's stature all his political life and suddenly he found himself alone.
Though fully capable of shouldering not just his political role but also carving the Maharashtra BJP's political future, he continued to feel Mahajan's loss for a very long time. It was a rare sight to see a seasoned politician like him sobbing like a child at Mahajan's funeral. After Mahajan;s death, Munde supported his family as much as he could. He tried very hard to get Poonam Mahajan a ticket in 2009 even so much as to put his political career at stake for her. But Poonam was a political rookie with an absolutely blank slate. And there was no Modi wave at that time to bail her out.
At a recent Modi rally in Mumbai, the one person on the dais to clap when Poonam Mahajan's name was announced was Munde.
His rivalry with Nitin Gadkari made a lot of sense as the two are temperamentally different and come from different backgrounds. Munde was a grassroots, man about village, politician. He knew where his bread and butter came from, and understood politics but couldnt play it as well for some time after Mahajan's death. Mahajan had always shielded him from the harsh arclights of party politics. So, it took a struggle for Munde to come into his own, but that he did. And how. Faced with Gadkari's rising stature with Modi and the BJP's national brass, he carved out his own niche to the point that Modi made him a union minister as well.
A big loss to the BJP for sure. RIP, Gopinathji.
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