She lacks leadership skills and has failed to meet the expectations of the people.
Pankaja Munde-Palwe who was eyeing the post of Chief Minister but ultimately was assigned the water Conservation, and women and child development berth in the cabinet has failed to meet the expectations of people. Pankaja performance has been poor and lackluster as she is nowhere close to the benchmark set by her father late Gopinath Munde who has been known as a grassroots leader. Political analysts have been criticising her leadership skills and ability to connect with masses. She has been unable to provide basic amenities to rural people and has only been making promises.
Pankaja Munde lost her political clout, importance because within months of sad demise of Gopinth Munde it was exposed and realized that “except being daughter of Munde; she has no other leadership quality or justification to her over ambitious plans to grab power post position”. Pankaja forgot about the ill-treatment meted against Poonam Mahajan the daughter of Pramod Mahajan who was once the ‘blue eyed boy’ of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Poonam Mahajan was neglected by the saffron party after Pramod Mahajan’s death.
She has been denied a ministerial birth and is a Member of Parliament from Mumbai North Central constituency. If Mahajans couldn’t claim the ministerial berth then how can Mundes’ dictate? Pankaja Munde’s biggest liability proved to be her unruly followers who during the funeral of Gopinath Munde and later in public meetings demanded CM’s post for her. Pankaja in the furious outburst insulted Nitin Gadkari, Devendra Fadanvis and Eknath Khadase; suspecting foul play in Munde’s accident.
According to sources, “There is a prevalence of internal politics between Munde and Mahajan camp. Initially, Pankaja had shown that she could amicably succeed her father Gopinath Munde and also had attracted crowds. But most of the crowds had only come to pay tributes to Munde on his funeral. BJP too had used Pankaja to gain sympathy from voters after Munde’s demise. The biggest mistake committed by her was to go public with her ambitions to become Chief Minister of Maharashtra despite lacking experience.”
Pankaja should have learned the tricks of the trade and worked hard within the party and later should have convinced party workers that she is fit for the job but it never happened.
“She has to carry forward her father’s legacy which is a difficult task as he was a very popular leader in Maharashtra politics and commands huge respect. She had tried to bypass other senior leaders in the party” added sources.
She had called herself as a “true mass leader” of the Bharatiya Janata Party and had displayed her ambition to become the CM by saying, “Yes, I am the nominee for the CM’s post. And if the party assigns me the job I am willing to take the responsibility.”
The Shiv Sena too helped Pankaja by not fielding a candidate against her in the Beed constituency. The BJP was also asking her to campaign for elections only to woo the OBC voters.
