Pankaja Munde removes mention of BJP from Twitter bio; Chandrakant Patil says she's 'introspecting after defeat, but not leaving'

After BJP leader Pankaja Munde removed her party’s name from her Twitter bio on Monday, state party chief Chandrakant Patil clarified that she was not leaving the party, according to a report in The Indian Express. “BJP leaders are in touch with her,” Patil told the newspaper. “She is introspecting after the defeat, but that does not mean she is leaving the party.” Countering Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut’s claim that many leaders were keen on joining the Uddhav Thackeray-led party, Patil further told the newspaper, “The accidental government that has come up in Maharashtra is spreading such baseless news. She may be having good family relations with Thackerays but it does not mean she is joining the Sena.” Munde earlier Monday created a flutter with her social media post on her “future journey” in view of the changing political scenario in Maharashtra. Also, in her three recent tweets posted on 28 November, she congratulated Maharashtra’s new chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, but not the government formed by the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress. Munde removed all details from her Twitter bio, including the word ‘BJP’ and description of her political journey. In the 21 October state Assembly elections, the BJP leader, who is the daughter of late party stalwart Gopinath Munde, lost to her cousin and NCP rival Dhananjay Munde in a bitter contest from Parli seat in Beed district. She was a minister in the earlier Devendra Fadnavis- led government. [caption id=“attachment_3501675” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File Image of Pankaja Munde. PTI[/caption] She remained present in all core committee meetings of the state BJP unit held before the formation of the new government led by Sena chief Thackeray . In her Facebook post on Sunday , she invited her followers to Gopinathgad on 12 December on the occasion of her late father’s birth anniversary. Gopinathgad is a memorial of Gopinath Munde in Beed. “Looking at the changed political scenario in the state, there is a need to think and decide the way ahead. I need time for some 8-10 days to communicate with myself. Our future journey needs to be decided against the backdrop of current political changes,” she wrote in her Facebook post in Marathi. “What to do next? Which path to be taken? What can we give to people? What is our strength? What are the expectations of people? I will think about all these aspects and come before you on 12 December,” she posted. She also wrote that she had accepted her defeat in the polls and moved on. “I had attended the meetings of the party (BJP),” the former MLA from Parli said on Facebook. Maharashtra politics saw several twists and turns after the Assembly poll results were declared on 24 October. Scripting a new political chapter in the state, the Shiv Sena snapped ties with its decades-old ally BJP, which won maximum 105 seats and joined hands with the NCP and Congress under the front called ‘Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi’ to form the government.