Karuna Sharma – doomsayer for Munde

Mumbai: Ruling ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)’s Dhananjay Munde’s estranged wife Karuna Sharma proved to be the proverbial doomsayer who first predicted that he would quit as a Minister, as the pacy developments unveiled on Tuesday.

Over the weekend, she had claimed that Munde had already submitted his resignation letter to NCP President and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, but few took her seriously.

In a social media post, she said that Ajit Pawar had secured Munde’s papers at least two days ago and it would be announced on Monday, though NCP leaders denied the claims.

Sharma persisted with her contentions before the media that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had purportedly directed Munde to submit his resignation, though nothing moved even on Monday.

Though Fadnavis dropped broad hints during a public speech that if required he would take Munde’s resignation, it actually materialized this morning, as the Opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi parties roared their approval.

Going further, Sharma today demanded that all those responsible for the murder of Massajog village (Beed) Sarpanch Santosh Pandit Deshmukh should be hanged, even as the besieged Munde insisted that he quit on ‘health grounds’.

The chorus for Munde’s scalp gained speed after certain disturbing photos of the tortures meted out to Deshmukh before his death (on Dec. 9, 2024), which surfaced last night, went viral and triggered a huge political uproar, sealing the Minister’s fate.

The political reactions and its potential fallout for the Mahayuti government left Munde with no options but to quit on March 4, in a face-saver for the NCP.

The next step of activists like Anjali Damania and other politicians is to tighten the screws on the NCP to take Munde’s resignation as an MLA from Parli assembly constituency in Beed.