Mumbai, August 16, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
A political controversy has erupted in Maharashtra after senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan claimed that late BJP leader Gopinath Munde had once explored the possibility of joining the Congress. Munde’s daughter and Maharashtra Minister Pankaja Munde has strongly rejected the claim.
Chavan said he was aware of discussions about the alleged move during his tenure as Maharashtra Chief Minister and claimed that Munde had held several rounds of talks with veteran Congress leader Ahmed Patel.
According to Chavan, Munde had sought a berth in the Union Cabinet as a condition for switching to the Congress. He further claimed that the proposal was discussed with then Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who had given her in-principle approval.
Chavan said, however, that the proposal ultimately failed to materialise because then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh opposed the idea of bringing an Opposition MP into the government after inducting him into the ruling party.
He claimed Singh was against “poaching” an Opposition leader and subsequently making him a Union Minister, and that this objection prevented the proposed move from progressing.
Pankaja Munde dismissed Chavan’s remarks, saying they had “no relevance at this stage”. She also maintained that her father had been deeply rooted in the BJP and was not a leader who had joined the party after switching from another political organisation.
“The statement made by Prithviraj Chavan no longer holds any significance. As far as I understand my father, he was born into this very ‘lotus’, the BJP, and he remained in it,” Pankaja told reporters.
She said Gopinath Munde’s long association with the BJP made it inappropriate to portray him as someone who could have been “imported” into the party or moved between political camps.
Gopinath Munde, who served as Union Minister for Rural Development, died in a road accident in New Delhi on June 3, 2014.
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