Munde's death throws spanner in assembly politics - Times of India

MUMBAI: The budget session was expected to be a lame duck one, with the ruling Congress-NCP combine rushing through it as fast as possible. After their worst ever performance in Lok Sabha elections in the history of Maharashtra, Congress and NCP were in no mood to face the opposition.

The BJP-Shiv Sena legislators too were fully charged up. After sitting in opposition for 15 long years, they were gearing up to further demoralize their rivals.

However, the situation has changed totally with the death of BJP's stalwart Gopinath Munde. Now it is the BJP legislators who somehow want to wind up the session and take stock of their party. Munde's death has created a huge void in the party just before the assembly elections.

Sources in BJP said that Munde's shraddha would be performed on June 14, with national and state BJP leaders meeting after that to discuss various options. Right now, they are busy attending various remembrance programmes for the mass leader.

Meanwhile, the deputy chief minister presented a lack lustre budget, which under normal circumstances would have been severely criticized by leader of opposition Eknath Khadse and state BJP president Devendra Fadnavis. However, barring perfunctory criticism by the two on TV channel debates, they did not devote much attention to it. They did not even take the government to task for not abolishing local body tax (LBT).

Unlike union transport minister Nitin Gadkari, Munde had good relations with many Sena leaders. They too are upset over his death. All this has taken a toll on legislative business.

On Monday, the opposition did not allow the house to function because their members had not been invited to medical education minister Jitendra Awhad's swearing in.

Munde died tragically on Tuesday morning and most opposition leaders left for Delhi. Those left passed a condolence motion. Then Munde's body was kept in Mumbai to allow people to pay respects. The legislative proceedings were suspended for two days.

However, the economic survey for 2013-14 was given to journalists and uploaded on the state government website on Wednesday. The budget was presented on Thursday and the business for the day ended.

On Friday, a condolence session was held which dragged on for hours. Fadnavis, who was Munde's protege, gave an emotional speech. Over 80% of the MLAs expressed their feelings.

The political atmosphere in the city too has turned mournful. Posters have sprung up at every corner lamenting Munde's death. One repeated Shivaji Maharaj's famous remark 'Gad ala pan sinh gela', referring to BJP-Sena's spectacular performance in the state.