Beed: A leader who rides on caste has no future in this country, Maharashtra's environment and animal husbandry minister Pankaja Munde said on Tuesday, taking on caste-driven politics from the Dasara stage at Bhagwan Bhaktigad in Patoda taluka. It was the 12th year of the melava at Savargaon Ghat, held under the shadow of a drought.
Munde began with a prayer and aarti at the shrine of Bhagwanbaba and saluted the crowd with a flag in hand. On the dais were minister of state Meghana Bordikar, MLA Dhananjay Munde, MLAs Monika Rajale and Namita Mundada, former MP Dr Pritam Munde, former minister Mahadev Jankar, former MP Sujay Vikhe Patil and Prof Laxman Hake.
'I would still owe you even if you made shoes of my skin. This is a drought-time melava. I will work as your shadow to get fodder from CSR funds and to push for compensation,' she said.
Drought hangs over Beed and Marathwada. 'Drought does not see small or big. Water, fodder and the survival of livestock are the same problem for everyone,' she said, asking people to pull down the walls of caste and faith and face the crisis together.
The announcement of the day was her decision to adopt Antarwali Sarati, a village in Ambad taluka of Jalna district. The village has been the centre of Manoj Jarange Patil's Maratha reservation movement. Munde said she would develop it the way she had developed villages in Beed. 'I will love Antarwali as much as every village in my Beed district,' she said.
Her advice to Gen Z was blunt. Today's young generation is Gen Z, and it must be led by the fist, not by gulab jamun. The country does not need youth who burn their own homes and nation to protest; it needs soldiers who carry the country forward, like the people's leader Gopinath Munde.
MLA Dhananjay Munde, in his trademark style, warned his rivals. 'Some gatherings have sat down to finish me, but they do not yet know that the wind has changed direction,' he said.
Signalling where she is headed, Munde said: 'My aim is not to stand in the crowd, but to be what the crowd stands for.'