Even as the war between Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Gopinath Munde and Nitin Gadkari continues to simmer, the former's supporters are fuming that the party high command is not brokering peace between the warring factions.
Munde's supporters are of the view that their leader has the support of the masses in Maharashtra backed by which he has been elected as many as five times to the state legislative assembly and Parliament.
They are unhappy over the treatment meted out to their leader after Nitin Gadkari, who they claim has no mass support in the state, assumed the presidentship of the BJP.
"BJP minus Mundeji is equal to BJP zero in Maharashtra," said a source supporting Munde. He was furious that his leader has been sidelined for more than 18 months.
Incidentally, Munde's decline in Maharashtra BJP began ever since Gadkari was elevated as BJP's national president in December 2009.
"Munde has been with the BJP since 1975 when we were the Jan Sangh," said this source. "The party has an image and standing in the state because of the hard work done by Munde-Mahajan (late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan) duo. We are a cadre-based party because of their efforts and the party's support base increased only after these leaders hammered social engineering bringing OBCs and other castes into the party-fold," he added.
While Munde has been sidelined for quite a while the trigger that fomented Munde's recent rebellion was the election of Vikas Mathkari as the president of the city unit of Pune on June 27.
"Yogesh Gogawde, who belongs to the Munde camp, won 23 out of the 39 votes while his rival Mathkari, belonging to the Gadkari camp, won just 15 votes. For four months this result was held in abeyance. And now suddenly Mathkari has been declared as the president of BJP's Pune unit," said the source.
The other factors that led to Munde's rebellion is the removal of Raj Purohit as the president of BJP's Mumbai unit and appointment of Vinod Tawde as leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra legislative council instead of Pandurang Phundkar, a staunch Munde supporter.
"There has been a deliberate attempt by the spin doctors in the party to sully Munde's name," said another source. "It is they who are spreading canards that Mundeji is planning to jump on to the United Progressive Alliance bandwagon as a Union minister," he added.
