Newsmaker | Dhananjay Munde, the NCP minister dogged by ‘family fights’ & ‘extortion’
It was a feud with his uncle and senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde that ultimately propelled Dhananjay Munde’s rise in Maharashtra politics a decade ago.
The 46-year-old who is now a senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and minister of social justice in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government finds himself involved in yet another family fight of sorts after his former live-in partner’s sister was arrested on Thursday. The Mumbai crime branch arrested the woman for allegedly threatening and trying to extort money from Munde, who has two children with his former partner.
Born in Nathra in Parli district, Dhananjay was groomed by Gopinath Munde and he cut his political teeth as a BJP youth worker before being elevated as the Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha’s state president in 2007.
A good orator, Dhananjay was deemed as a close confidant of the senior Munde who gave him and his father Panditrao the responsibility of nurturing his Assembly constituency Parli and looking after the family’s political interests in Beed district. At the time, Dhananjay was seen by many as Gopinath Munde’s political heir.
Dhananjay Munde at an election rally in Parle, Maharashtra. (Express Photo: Amit Chakravarty, File)
But the relationship between the two soured in 2009 when Gopinath chose his daughter Pankaja to represent Parli. While the BJP tried to placate Dhananjay by making him a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council in 2010, the relationship between uncle and nephew started going downhill, leading to Dhananjay’s alienation from the party.
The final straw, however, was Dhananjay’s insistence on making one of his supporters the city council president in the Parli Municipal Council despite his uncle’s opposition. The younger Munde, who managed to get his nominee elected, claimed that Gopinath was getting insecure about his growing influence in Beed.
But the party leadership sided with Gopinath. Left with no options, Dhananjay hedged his bets and invited NCP leader and his uncle’s arch-rival Ajit Pawar to a rally in Parli in January 2012. At the event, Panditanna joined the NCP.
While Dhananjay cosied up to the NCP, he resigned from the BJP and as an MLC only in July 2013 and joined the Sharad Pawar-led party. The NCP fielded him in the 2014 Assembly elections from Parli but Dhananjay lost to Pankaja by more than 25,000 votes.
Despite the loss, the NCP bet big on Munde and made him the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council in December 2014. The death of his uncle in an accident in June 2014 put Dhananjay in direct conflict with Pankaja as they both tried to assert their influence in Beed.
In the 2019 Assembly elections, Dhananjay managed to trump his cousin by winning Parli by more than 30,000 votes. While Dhananjay has his own power base in the constituency, the speculation in political circles at the time was that Pankaja’s defeat was a result of the state BJP’s internal power struggle as she had presented herself as a contender for the chief minister’s chair. Dhananjay was also believed to have had some secret backing from a section of the state BJP.
As Ajit Pawar manoeuvred to form a government with the BJP in November 2019, Dhananjay’s old relationship with the saffron party suddenly made him the most important figure after Pawar. On the day of the swearing-in ceremony, all the rebel NCP MLAs were asked to arrive at Munde’s home and from there they proceeded to the Raj Bhavan.
But the government lasted only three days and both Munde and Pawar found themselves back in the NCP within days. His close relationship with Pawar was instrumental in Munde’s quick rehabilitation in the NCP and he was appointed the social justice minister in the MVA government.
Relationship that went sour
However, in January 2021, 13 months after taking over as minister, Munde found himself embroiled in a controversy when his former partner’s sister accused him of rape.
Munde, who is married and has a young daughter, released a statement stating that the accusations were part of a blackmail conspiracy. He, however, acknowledged that he was in a relationship with the complainant’s sister and has two children with her. Days later, the complainant withdrew her accusations.
However, in February 2021 the complainant’s sister, who claimed to be Munde’s second wife, filed a complaint with the Mumbai police commissioner stating that her children were living with the NCP leader in his official bungalow in Chitrakoot and she had not been allowed to meet them for three months.
Last September, the woman held a press conference in Parli and claimed that she would speak against the alleged misdeeds of the minister. But she got into a verbal tiff with Munde’s supporters and was arrested for allegedly hurling casteist abuses at them. She spent 16 days in prison.
Since that episode, Munde has maintained a low profile. He was admitted to a hospital in Mumbai this month after suffering a health scare. But the allegations have failed to dent Munde’s political capital as he is still valued in the NCP for being one of the few Other Backward Class (OBC) leaders in the largely Maratha-dominated party.
