Pankaja Munde takes veiled jibes at ruling parties, says ‘characterless’ politicians will be outvoted

Pankaja Munde, BJP leader and former Maharashtra Minister, indicated she will soon re-enter the political arena. She warned "characterless politicians" will be outvoted in 2024 and vowed to secure justice for farmers and sugarcane cutters. She thanked people for the overwhelming response to her non-political event and said she will take to the political battlefield to defeat others.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pankaja Munde, who is the party’s national secretary, on Tuesday indicated she would soon re-enter the political arena while remarking that that the people of Maharashtra had lost the “capacity to face disappointment.”

Addressing a massive audience during her annual Dussehra rally in Beed district, Ms. Munde, a former Maharashtra Minister who has been estranged from the BJP top brass, said she would never compromise her principles for the sake of electoral victory.

In a typically ambivalent speech laced with veiled jibes at the ruling parties (her own BJP, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP faction), Ms. Munde, the daughter of late BJP stalwart Gopinath Munde, warned that “characterless politicians” would be outvoted by the people in the 2024 elections.

“I will work to defeat those who are not competent to take the state forward, who are characterless and who make use of money power,” she said.

Ms. Munde thanked the people for the overwhelming response she claimed to have received during her recently concluded ‘Shiv Shakti Yatra’ - an ostensibly non-political event meant to address social issues from which Maharashtra BJP leaders had nonetheless distanced themselves.

“Are farmers happy today? Are they receiving crop insurance and government aid? Sugarcane cutters will not work if their wages are not increased. If I do not secure justice for them, I will not show my face at the next Dussehra rally,” she said, in a jibe at the Shinde government while speaking on the plight of sugarcane cutters, many of whom hail from Beed and the Marathwada region.

“The State is facing many serious problems today. The Marathas are demanding reservation. The OBC community is looking at the State government with great expectations. The people have lost the capacity to face disappointment now,” said Ms. Munde.