Dhananjay Munde skips Ajit Pawar’s meetings in Beed

Mumbai: Deputy chief minister and Nationalist Congress Party president Ajit Pawar on Wednesday warned party leaders against recruiting people with a criminal background in Beed, which has witnessed a massive public outcry over the brutal murder of a sarpanch, Santosh Deshmukh, in December.

Pawar, who is also the guardian minister for Beed, visited the district for the first time since the NCP’s Dhananjay Munde resigned as a cabinet minister on March 3. Munde was forced to resign after the police named his close aide and local strongman Walmik Karad as one of the main accused in the murder case.

Munde, who is a two-term MLA from the Parli assembly constituency in Beed and is considered a close aide of Pawar, has maintained a low profile since his resignation. He skipped all of Pawar’s meetings on Wednesday but later clarified that it was because he was in Mumbai for medical treatment.

Pawar, during his one-day tour of Beed, held several meetings with the district administration and NCP leaders. Addressing party workers in a meeting, he said: “We will have to stop everything that brings a bad name to Beed. Do check the background of the people before recruiting them in the party. I don’t want those who are involved in wrongful activities.”

The NCP chief added that his style of functioning differs from that of officials in Beed, while expressing unhappiness over a series of high-profile incidents that have exposed deep-seated issues of crime, political influence, and social unrest in the district. He assured that action would be taken against all criminal gangs operating in the district. “All the gangs, such as the ash mafia and sand mafia, will be taken to task,” he said.

Beed has been on the boil ever since the gruesome murder of Santosh Deshmukh, the sarpanch of Massajog village, on December 9. Deshmukh was allegedly abducted, tortured, and killed, allegedly for opposing an extortion racket targeting a windmill project in his village. The murder case gained widespread attention after videos emerged of Deshmukh being tortured and brutally beaten up with pipes and rods.

Munde has been skipping all NCP meetings since he was forced to resign last month after the details of the brutality in the Deshmukh murder case became public, leading to public outrage. NCP leaders admitted that the former minister is unhappy about being ousted from a ministerial position.

“Who will not feel bad after being removed as a minister? Munde has always maintained that he was not directly linked with the murder and should not be removed. As far as Ajitdada’s Beed tour is concerned, it is also a fact that Munde is not keeping well and may have a genuine reason to skip the meeting,” said a senior NCP functionary. Another leader added that Munde is suffering from Bell’s Palsy, and his treatment is still going on.

After his absence from Pawar’s meetings in Beed raised eyebrows, Munde posted on X that he was forced to skip them because of his poor health. “...as my health is still not in a good condition, I had to come to Mumbai for treatment… I had informed the party leadership about this in advance and request that there should not be any confusion in this regard,” he wrote.

Along with Karad, NCP office bearer and Kej taluka chief Vishnu Chate was also arrested in connection with the murder case and booked under sections of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (MCOCA).