Munde's nephew quits BJP, joins NCP

BJP MLC Dhananjay Munde, nephew of former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde, today resigned as a legislator and formally joined NCP.
Dhananjay submitted his resignation letter to Legislative Council chairman Shivajirao Deshmukh at Vidhan Bhavan and also resigned from the primary membership of BJP.
Dhananjay told reporters at the NCP office that he had distanced himself from the BJP a year-and-half back because his services were not utilised properly by the leadership.
"Since January last year, I have been working for the NCP in Beed district. NCP has got majority in zilla parishad and panchayat samiti elections since then," he said.

To a question on whether he would contest the Beed Lok Sabha or Parli Assembly elections, Dhananjay said he would serve the NCP in whatever capacity he is asked to.
Dhananjay was elected to the Legislative Council from the Legislative Assembly quota and had three years of his tenure left.

He wanted to contest the Parli Assembly seat in 2009 but uncle Gopinath Munde chose his daughter Pankaja and made Dhananjay MLC.
To a question on his uncle Gopinath Munde's election expenditure, Dhananjay who was a part of the election team, said he had no idea about it. "I was just an ordinary worker and was not involved in the expenditure issue," he said.

Gopinath Munde had recently stoked a controversy by his candid admission about spending Rs eight crore on his 2009 Lok Sabha campaign, with Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil demanding that the Election Commission take cognisance and decide on whether to allow him to contest again.