Gopinath Munde found friends, mentors and his career in Pune
PUNE: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Moti Baug, Shaniwar Peth, Pune. It was Gopinath Munde's address for a year when he came to the city in the early 1970s.
Munde's love for Pune came through in many acknowledgements. He had said that the city gave him everything-teachers, friends, guides and mentors. "It was this city that prompted me to jump into public life. I would have never been in politics had I not come to Pune," said Munde in his public interview in city in 2011.
"Three persons-- Shripati Shastri, Vasantrao Bhagwat and Pramod Mahajan played an important role in my life. Whenever I felt depressed, I would speak to them. Today, I am in the last phase of my life and I have lost all of them. I have no one to speak to and share my pains and sorrows. It's a lonely feeling..." said Munde, his voice choked with emotion, in an interview after the release of his photo biography by a city-based publication.
He said Shastri had taught him public speaking. "During the Emergency, I attended a public rally addressed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Subramanian Swamy at Talegaon Dabhade near Pune. This was the moment when I decided to join Jan Sangh," Munde had recalled.
Munde, who came to the city as a law student, was taken into the RSS fold by Shastri, the Sangh's then Bauddhik Pramukh. Munde worked in Pune and opened a shakha in Wadarwadi to attract youths to the sangh.
But it was another RSS leader Vasantrao Bhagwat who identified Munde as one of his ten proteges along with Pramod Mahajan, Nitin Gadkari, Prakash Javadekar and others. Bhagwat rigorously trained them before they joined active politics.
Union minister of state Prakash Javadekar, speaking to the media in New Delhi, was in tears when he recalled Munde's Pune connection, while BJP city MP Anil Shirole said Munde learned his first political lessons in Pune. "We had realized his potential as a mass leader in our student days. He was courageous and confident and even in those days focused on what he wanted to do," said Shirole.
BJP MLA Girish Bapat recalled how he and Munde rode bicycles across the city as RSS pracharaks. Other Sangh leaders in the city spoke about how Munde had acquired a central place in the BJP's politics by helping the party spread its base in rural Maharashtra. They said he was the BJP's face in the state for decades.
Munde's love for Pune came through in many acknowledgements. He had said that the city gave him everything-teachers, friends, guides and mentors. "It was this city that prompted me to jump into public life. I would have never been in politics had I not come to Pune," said Munde in his public interview in city in 2011.
"Three persons-- Shripati Shastri, Vasantrao Bhagwat and Pramod Mahajan played an important role in my life. Whenever I felt depressed, I would speak to them. Today, I am in the last phase of my life and I have lost all of them. I have no one to speak to and share my pains and sorrows. It's a lonely feeling..." said Munde, his voice choked with emotion, in an interview after the release of his photo biography by a city-based publication.
He said Shastri had taught him public speaking. "During the Emergency, I attended a public rally addressed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Subramanian Swamy at Talegaon Dabhade near Pune. This was the moment when I decided to join Jan Sangh," Munde had recalled.
Munde, who came to the city as a law student, was taken into the RSS fold by Shastri, the Sangh's then Bauddhik Pramukh. Munde worked in Pune and opened a shakha in Wadarwadi to attract youths to the sangh.
But it was another RSS leader Vasantrao Bhagwat who identified Munde as one of his ten proteges along with Pramod Mahajan, Nitin Gadkari, Prakash Javadekar and others. Bhagwat rigorously trained them before they joined active politics.
Union minister of state Prakash Javadekar, speaking to the media in New Delhi, was in tears when he recalled Munde's Pune connection, while BJP city MP Anil Shirole said Munde learned his first political lessons in Pune. "We had realized his potential as a mass leader in our student days. He was courageous and confident and even in those days focused on what he wanted to do," said Shirole.
BJP MLA Girish Bapat recalled how he and Munde rode bicycles across the city as RSS pracharaks. Other Sangh leaders in the city spoke about how Munde had acquired a central place in the BJP's politics by helping the party spread its base in rural Maharashtra. They said he was the BJP's face in the state for decades.
"His last bid was to bring together all the parties against Congress-NCP. He was pivotal in forming the grand alliance with Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha and Republican Party of India and the BJP-Sena. His efforts bore fruit and the alliance defeated the Congress-NCP in the state," said SSS MP Raju Shetty.