Munde's no to meeting BJP leadership

The crisis in the Maharashtra BJP deepened a day after national general secretary Gopinath Munde resigned from all posts in the party. Munde today refused the party high command's summons to Delhi to attend a meeting called to discuss the issue.

Munde made it very clear that he would not be going to Delhi and instead dispatched two emissaries "" state Assembly and council chiefs Eknath Kadse and Pandurang Phundkar.

While the immediate provocation for the resignation was the appointment of council member Madhu Chavan, considered close to state unit chief and Munde's rival in the party Nitin Gadkari, as Mumbai unit chief, Munde himself said that his grievances went much deeper.

"My anger is against the manner in which the party is functioning and not against the appointment of Madhu Chavan," he said.

Speaking about his decision of not going to Delhi, Munde said, "I am a party to the dispute. How can I participate in the consultation process in which decision is going to be taken on the issues which I have raised, like lack of internal democracy in the party?"

"However, if the issue is not resolved by April 26, I will be starting my Samvad Yatra from Pune, where I began my political career, and talk to the party's workers and the public about the issues I have raised," he added.

Munde today also got support from 16 BJP corporators of the Pune civic body who sent in their resignations to BJP president Rajnath Singh to express their solidarity with the party general secretary, who is the brother-in-law of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan.

By evening, at a BJP legislative party meeting, attempts were made to woo Munde, with the state BJP's 64 MLAs and MLCs "unanimously" passing a resolution putting their faith in his leadership.

Even his detractors Gadkari and Vinod Tawade were present at the meeting. "Munde has not quit the party and this is a move to woo him back," said a senior party leader in Delhi.

In Delhi, the party went into a huddle on how best to control the crisis.

"He (Munde) will come here tonight or tomorrow morning and we will talk to him," BJP president Rajnath Singh told reporters after the two-and-a-half hour meeting of the party's core group in which senior leaders L K Advani, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Arun Jaitly, Sushma Swaraj and Bal Apte were present.

Singh also called up the defiant thrice during the day to convince him to withdraw his resignation.

"I am confident that some solution will be found through talks," the BJP chief said. He insisted there was "no compromise formula".

Earlier, Singh had a meeting with BJP Maharashtra unit chief Nitin Gadkari. Senior Maharashtra unit leader Ram Naik was also present.

"This is a race to control the Maharashtra BJP. There are two things: Munde cannot expect to succeed into Pramod Mahajan's extraordinary position in the party and Gadkari should also acknowledge that Munde is one of the few mass-based leaders there," said a senior leader in the party.

Munde tonight met Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray at his residence in Mumbai and requested him to mediate in the matter, sources said.

Earlier in the day, Munde also met NCP leader and Maharashtra minister Chhagan Bhujbal, fuelling speculation about a possible coming together of the two OBC leaders on a common political platform in the state.