People encourage dynastic politics if they feel secure: Munde

Maharashtra Rural Development Minister Pankaja Munde today called herself a product of "dynastic politics" and said people encourage it when they feel secure being with such families.

The minister, daughter of late BJP leader and former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde, contended that it was, however, wrong to impose dynastic politics on the people.

She said that it was also wrong to ignore somebody just because the individual hailed from a political family.

"I am a product of dynastic politics. It is people who encourage dynasties in politics if they feel secure being with them. Dynastic politics should not be imposed on people," she said today during an informal chat with reporters here.

Taking a swipe at Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, Munde said that "those who can't talk and have no vision" are imposed on the people by national parties.

She termed herself a "reluctant politician" but was in it to fulfil her late father's vision as well as to work for the people.

"If I am unable to fulfil his vision ,it can be said that I have been imposed on the people," she said.

While claiming that she was ready to emerge as one of the state's prominent OBC leaders, Munde also said that she wanted her political journey to go beyond caste equations.

"The 2019 polls will be decisive in this regard (emergence of OBC leadership)," she said.

She added that she was interested in national politics but the decision on when to take the plunge would be hers.

Speaking about her estranged cousin Dhananjay Munde, currently a Nationalist Congress Party MLC, she said that there was no room for reconciliation between the two.

"There was no communication between the two families even when my father was alive," she said.

She further said that the NCP made Dhananjay Munde the Leader of the Opposition in the state Legislative Council only after she was made a minister in the state government.

He left the BJP (in 2013) thinking that he would be made a minister (in the previous Democratic Front government), she claimed.