Maharashtra politics: BJP leader Pankaja Munde refutes claims of party summoning her to work

Pic/Twitter@Pankajamunde

Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former minister Pankaja Munde has said the news in a section of media of she being asked by the party to cancel her "break from politics" and get active is not factual.

According to news agency PTI, a Marathi news channel report, quoting an English daily, has claimed Pankaja Munde, who is the in-charge of Madhya Pradesh, has been asked by top BJP leaders in Delhi to cancel her "break from politics" and get active as the central state will go to polls in some months.

Retweeting the news channel's report on Wednesday evening, Pankaja Munde said, "It is absolutely not factual."

On July 7, Pankaja Munde said she was planning to take a break for "one or two months" as she was anguished at her integrity being questioned time and again.

She also said her party would have to answer if she had merit and asserted only time will tell if she was treated unfairly.

Munde had claimed portions of her speeches were sometimes take out of context and speculations were made on what she said, because of which she decided to take a break "not from my work but from you (media)".

The BJP leader also said that after her defeat in the 2019 Assembly polls from Parli (when she lost the election to her cousin and NCP leader Dhananjay Munde), her name came up for nomination to the Rajya Sabha and two times for the Maharashtra Legislative Council, but she was asked not to go ahead at the last moment.

She said her party would have to answer if she had merit and asserted that only time will tell if she was treated unfairly.

Munde also panned the media for taking some of her statements out of context or misquoting her, adding that she planned to sue one channel which reported on her meeting Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

In a swipe, the former Parli MLA also said her party colleagues had worked hard on the campaign to highlight nine years of the Narendra Modi government but were not mustering courage to speak on recent developments in Maharashtra, a reference to the NCP split and a faction joining the Eknath Shinde government.

The former state minister and daughter of party stalwart late Gopinath Munde said she wanted the BJP's ideology of Deendayal Upadhyaya and Atal Bihari Vajpayee to remain as she had grown up on that sentiment.

Addressing a press conference, Munde said post her defeat in the 2019 Assembly polls from Parli, her name came up for nomination to the Rajya Sabha and two times for the Maharashtra Legislative Council but she was asked to not go ahead at the last moment.

"I have never commented on this in public and have obeyed the party directive. i have never worked against the party's interest. Where is politics going...nobody is interested in what people think, I am going to introspect," she said.

(With inputs from PTI)