A big setback to the government

Mumbai: Food and Civil Supplies Minister Dhananjay Munde’s resignation has come as a big setback to the state government under Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. After the massive mandate the state government was expected to show an impressive performance on the governance front.

In fact, CM Fadnavis had even started conducting meetings giving 100-day targets to various departments in order to brighten up their performance. However, much of its initial time appears to have been wasted in putting together its acts amidst the challenges like worsening law and order situation and ministers having to resign due to their names linked in such cases. The most common reaction in the political circles after the resignation today was – its too late!

Generally, unless it becomes an unbearable burden the governments don’t come under pressure and accept the demands like resignation of a minister, being raised either by the opposition or the people. Attempts are also made to get a face saver, divert the attention of people to other issues and deviate the cases to avoid the action.

However, none of these things seem to have been done in this case. While the ruling combine may term it as its commitment towards the people and fairness in action, the opposition would certainly treat it as the soft underbelly of the government and would mount pressure on the government to take action.

Another issue about this government is that it’s a coalition government, though it enjoys a massive mandate. Also, the differences between the constituent political parties of the government have already been there in open and loud. On the backdrop of today’s resignation, the constituent parties are likely to mount pressure against each other by demanding resignation of the ministers and today’s resignation will be cited as the precedent. This will lead to increasing rift among the parties, said a senior political functionary in the government on condition of anonymity.

The resignation is also expected to weaken the NCP. Whether and how it affects the leadership of Ajit Pawar needs to be seen.

Munde, in his social media post after resignation said that he was deeply moved after seeing the photographs of the murder of Santosh Deshmukh and resigned due to his conscience said so. However, he also wrote in the post that his doctors have advised him complete rest after recent surgery and hence he decided to resign.

Mundes – the troublemakers for Devendra Fadnavis

During his formative days within the state BJP, Devendra Fadnavis was always seen as a staunch loyalist of senior party leader Gopinath Munde. However, after the untimely death of the senior leader when Fadnavis became the Chief Minister, during both his tenures, the next generation of Munde family came forth as the greatest troublemakers for him. Within a year of his coming to power in 2014, Fadnavis government came under heavy attack from the opposition over fraud in purchase of ‘Chikki’ for aanganwadi kids. Pankaja Munde was the minister for Women and Child Development that looked after the aanganwadis and she got a dubious name of ‘Chikki Tai’ over the alleged scam. She also came to be known as the first minister against whom corruption charges were made in the Fadnavis government, that was being considered to be spotlessly clean till then.

After almost ten years, the history has repeated and Dhananjay Munde has become the first minister of Fadnavis government who has become a cause of biggest embarrassment for the government.

"It’s a welcome development. But, this should have happened much earlier. In fact after the incident on December 9 he shouldn’t have been included in the cabinet in the first place."

Pankaja Munde, Minister, Environment