Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde on Friday said he has decided to attend a meeting convened in Delhi to discuss his fate but indicated that he had no plans to join ally Shiv Sena and split the saffron alliance.
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari was on Wednesday given the additional charge of portfolios held by Gopinath Munde who died in a road accident in New Delhi.
Maintaining that anything is possible in politics, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde on Sunday called for a tri-partite alliance of Shiv Sena, BJP and Raj Thackeray led-Maharashtra Navnirman Sena to pull down the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine.
A visibly cheerful Gopinath Munde, Bharatiya Janata Party's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, on his arrival in Mumbai, reiterated his decision to continue to be in the party. He lashed at his rivals for running a concerted campaign to defame him and said they stood exposed now. In an interview with Sanjay Jog, Munde spoke about the recent developments and his future plans
Speaking from his residence in Purna, Mumbai, Munde lamented that he was in Mumbai since Monday night but was still uninvited for the BJP meet.
"It is now my ambition to move to Delhi as a member of Parliament. This I will do with the blessings of people," Munde said while addressing a rally at Shri Kshetra Bhagwangarh, at the border of Beed and Ahmednagar district, on Friday. Speaking for the first time in a public meeting after his stand-off with the party central leadership on the issue of appointment of key functionaries of the Maharashtra unit, Munde said, "Nothing new can happen without me in Mumbai, Delhi."
In the purported conversation she allegedly said she can buy anyone she wishes from the money provided for '25-15' -- a scheme meant for funding small works in rural areas.
The Election Commission has let off senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde, in connection with his speech early this year when he claimed to have spent Rs 8 crore in his election campaign, with an advice to be "mindful of his political discourse" in the future.
The 32-year-old driver of the cab, which hit Union Minister Gopinath Munde's car in the wee hours in New Dehli on Tuesday at an intersection leading to his death, was allegedly speeding and had jumped the red light, according to police.
The Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray on Tuesday fielded Milind Narvekar, a close aide of party chief Uddhav Thackeray, in the biennial elections to 11 seats from the legislative council, taking the number of candidates in the fray to 12.
Though it did strike him to give the statement earlier, he could not as Mahajan was critical and his sister-in-law Rekha was not keeping well.
The Maharashtra unit of Aam Aadmi Party on Monday filed a complaint with the Election Commission against Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar for asking his party workers to "vote twice" in polls and sought derecognition of his party.
Speaking at a joint rally of Mahayuti partners in Mumbai, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis supported Shinde's claims, stating that the NDA leaders did not pay enough attention to the lies spread by the Opposition during the campaign.
Pankaja Munde -- who lit the funeral pyre of her father Gopinath Munde on Wednesday at his ancestral village of Parli in Maharasthra along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party general secretary Amit Shah -- will lead the the Bharatiya Janata Party's campaign for the assembly elections scheduled for later this year.
Political differences blurred as Congress president Sonia Gandhi wrote a personal letter to Union minister Gopinath Munde's family condoling his death and Rahul Gandhi visited the Bharatiya Janata Party office to pay respects to the departed leader.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday named 72 more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal and Anurag Singh Thakur, and former chief ministers Manohar Lal Khattar, Trivendra Singh Rawat and Basavaraj Bommai.
In the first post-assembly poll shakeup, the BJP has replaced Munde with Nitin Gadkari as the state party chief.
Wearing a seat belt could have saved Rural Development Minister Gopinath Munde, who died in a road accident, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Wednesday and announced a major campaign to spread awareness on observing safety measures while driving.
Hours after the Nationalist Congress Party rubbished rumours of making a pact with the Bharatiya Janata Party, the saffron party on Wednesday also ruled out the possibility of taking support from the Sharad Pawar-led outfit.
Talks between Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari and sulking senior party leader Gopinath Munde remained inconclusive late on Sunday with both sides sticking to their stand over the appointment of their men in key posts in Maharashtra and hold over party politics in the state. "I have been holding talks with our state in-charge M Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar and general secretary (organisation) Ramlal. Today, I met party president Nitin Gadkari," he said.
The biennial polls of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) on October 18 will see a straight fight for the presidentship between two Maharashtra political heavyweights -- Sharad Pawar and Gopinath Munde.
Sixteen Bharatiya Janata Party corporators of Pune civic body have sent their resignations to party president Rajnath Singh to express solidarity with party general secretary Gopinath Munde, who resigned from all organisational posts. The corporators, who met late on Sunday night to discuss Munde's resignation, said their loyalties would remain with the BJP leader and they would follow the "path" shown by him in future.
Senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde, sulking over some decisions taken in his own state Maharashtra, on Saturday held discussions with senior party colleagues M Venkaiah Naidu and Ananth Kumar but party President Nitin Gadkari stayed away from the exercise.
The supporters of sulking Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde continued to throng his Worli residence in Mumbai on Thursday, hoping that the June 18 meeting in Delhi, convened by the party to discus his fate, would go their leader's way.
Gopinath Munde on Sunday resigned from all organizational posts, resenting lack of democracy in the party.Munde is apparently miffed at the appointment of Member of Legislative Council Madhu Chavan, considered close to state BJP president Nitin Gadkari, as the head of the party's Mumbai unit. Ties between Munde and Gadkari have remained strained for quite some time.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde has stoked a controversy by his candid admission about spending Rs 8 crore on his 2009 Lok Sabha campaign, with Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil demanding that the Election Commission take cognizance and decide on whether to allow him to contest again.
Union minister Gopinath Munde's liver was ruptured in the road accident and he suffered a cardiac arrest due to shock, as per preliminary post-mortem report by a team of doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.
Taking potshots at senior Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde, the Shiv Sena on Monday said it will be Narendra Modi who will have the final word on the issue of chief ministerial candidate in the assembly polls.
"Some of the top party leaders, including party president Rajnath Singh have spoken to Munde on phone and asked him not to precipitate matters and come to Delhi to talk about his problems," a senior BJP leader told rediff.com on Monday morning. According to sources, others who spoke to Munde include Arun Jaitley and BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
He said it was not possible to do so while he was trying to collect blood for the late politician's emergency surgery.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde on Monday criticised Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's statement that Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray would lose his clout after the February 16 civic polls in the state saying he was "living in fool's paradise".
Asserting that the Bharatiya Janata Party's alliance with the Shiv Sena is firmly in place, senior party leader Gopinath Munde on Saturday said that the saffron combine cannot accommodate a third partner. Addressing a press conference after inducting former Congress Member of Legislative Assembly Nana Patole into the party fold, Munde who has been made in-charge of the BJP for the upcoming assembly elections, said there will be no change in the seat sharing formula.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar supremo Sharad Pawar on Saturday said there was no question of taking back those leaders who had deserted the two parties.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde's youngest daughter, Pritam, was injured after being hit by a speeding biker in Mumbai Friday late night.
Putting up a fabulous performance, the stars had the spectators all geared up for the match.
He also sought framing of a law to identify Kunbis as Marathas, and warned of fielding candidates from all 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra in the upcoming state polls if his demands were not approved.
Pankaja, daughter of late BJP stalwart Gopinath Munde, said the allegations were part of a plan to defame her.
The Bharatiya Janata Party replaced at least 25 sitting MPs with new faces as the party released its second list of 72 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on Wednesday.
Pramod's brother-in-law Gopinath Munde's statement has come as shot in the arm for the prosecutors in the case.
The Election Commission is mulling issuing a notice to Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde on his statement that he had spent Rs 8 crore in the last Lok Sabha elections much above the prescribed ceiling as the Congress stepped up the demand for his disqualification as Member of Parliament.
