Maharashtra: Pankaja Munde Latur drought selfie moment stirs dynasty dust

New Delhi: At 36, Pankaja Munde is perceived as a tad impatient to make it to the top post in Maharashtra. Impatience often gives way to impetuosity, causing the young lady, a political legatee no less weighty than Supriya Sule, Sharad Pawar's heir apparent, to bobble every now and then. Last Saturday, she courted yet another controversy when she posted her selfies during a visit to drought-scarred Latur, beaming widely. Pankaja, loaded with ministries like rural development, water conservation, employment guarantee scheme and women and child development, is also the guardian minister of Latur and its neighbour, Beed.

If her pictures on Twitter drew a storm of protests, the ensuing explanation exacerbated people's anger. She claimed she broke into a smile after spotting a swathe of water on the parched terrain. "It was like finding an oasis in a desert for me. By levelling false allegations on me, who are these people trying to help, drought-hit villages or farmers?" she asked in a statement. A source in the Shiv Sena, the BJP's Maharashtra ally, remarked it almost seemed as though Pankaja herself was on a picnic and was out to plug drought tourism. Her contention in the statement was: "There was no excitement, only contentment." When Pankaja's response was sought, she replied in a text message. "I have given my statements if it is called a controversy." The reactions to Pankaja's selfie splurge ranged from scepticism about the BJP's dynasts to more charitable views. Pankaja is the daughter of the late Gopinath Munde who passed away within days of becoming an Union minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet in 2014. If Pawar holds sway over the dominant Marathas of Maharashtra, Munde had emerged as a leader of the backward castes that included the Vanjare, his community, the Mali and the Dhangar. "He was one of the most rooted leaders the BJP ever had. It's a vacuum that's difficult to fill," a Maharashtra BJP leader said. BJP president Amit Shah draped Munde's mantle over Pankaja's shoulders shortly after his death. She had forayed into politics in 2009 when she won an Assembly election from Parli. Shah blooded her into the system through a "yatra" that aimed at reconsolidating the backward caste coalition her father had forged. With the Maharashtra assembly election months away, Pankaja's cheerleaders had raised the banner of "her-as-CM" loudly to Shah's discomfiture. But he didn't rein them in. "The problem with political dynasts through the spectrum is that they get everything on a platter. They don't put in 50 per cent of the work their parents put in. That sense of entitlement is worrying and more so in a party like ours that ideologically rejects political inheritance," a central BJP official said. Pankaja's seniors from Maharashtra took a more lenient perspective. "Unfortunately, her father is not around to guide her. But her heart is in the right place. She's simple, like her father, and does not understand political correctness," a state BJP leader said. A fellow legislator of the BJP said Pankaja's aspirations to become the chief minister were constantly fuelled by hangers-on. "They keep saying you are CM material," he said. Pankaja's tryst with controversies began shortly after she became a minister in Maharashtra in 2014. Sympathisers detect a pattern in blowing them up as the "handiwork" of her BJP rivals. She was accused of passing contracts worth Rs 206 crore for the purchase of "chikki" candy and "khichdi" for "anganwadi" kids in a single day. The produce was allegedly found to be below par later. Next, when on a visit to the Parbhani district, Pankaja waded barefoot through slush but someone was spotted carrying her footwear. She claimed the person was a "private employee" and not a government staffer. Recently, it was alleged she had awarded a dam-construction contract to a company that was disqualified earlier for a technical reason. Pankaja maintained she had not violated rules. Notwithstanding the periodic political blows, Pankaja was rated as one of the "most promising" leaders from the generation that came after Modi, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj. "The caste she belongs to and her grass-roots connect are the reasons," a source said, contrasting her with cousin Poonam Mahajan, a Lok Sabha MP from Mumbai. Poonam is the daughter of the late Pramod Mahajan whose sister Pradnya was married to Munde. "Poonam is a Mahajan, good at drawing board strategies but not at connecting with the masses," a source said. Poonam is a year younger than Pankaja but has not quite made the cut in the BJP. -The Telegraph Calcutta