Why a record poll win will be difficult for BJP’s Pritam Munde this time around

With a not-so impressive record as an MP, Pritam Munde is facing a tricky contest in Beed from an NCP candidate who is being pushed by her estranged cousin.

MP Pritam Munde | Twitter/@DrPritamMunde

Mumbai: In 2014, Pritam Munde, now 36, became a part of Maharashtra’s long list of political dynasts when she stepped into the shoes of her father, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalwart Gopinath Munde, after his sudden death. She won the Lok Sabha bypoll from the Munde family bastion of Beed, crushing all records, with a victory margin of 6.96 lakh, the highest ever in India’s electoral history.

“It is your responsibility now to help your daughter break electoral records once again and send her to Delhi,” she said to a charged crowd at a rally in Ambajogai in the Beed district four days ago.

Even so, the Munde sisters, Pankaja and Pritam, perhaps know that it is not going to be the same this time when Beed votes on 18 April. They are running around the scorching, drought-stricken district not only rekindling the sentiment of their father’s legacy, but also emphasising the development works under the BJP-ruled central and state governments.

‘Built roads and railways’

In her rallies, Pritam, a dermatologist by qualification, has been telling people she as an MP got roads worth Rs 11,000 crore sanctioned for the Beed district. She particularly talks about how work on the long-pending Beed-Parli-Ahmednagar railway line, her father’s dream and a project being talked about since the early 1990s, is now underway.

Recounting the various schemes of the Modi government, she asks people if they have toilets in their homes now, if they have received the first instalment of the Central government’s direct income transfer scheme, and if they have cooking gas under the Ujjwala scheme.

If re-elected, Pritam promises to bring industries to Beed, improve health facilities, improve drinking water and irrigation facilities and so on.

However, Ashok Tangade, a Beed-based social activist, said, “Simply building roads and railways is not development. Development is one that works at improving the human resource in the constituency.

“For example, nothing has been done, and there are no promises either, for the eight lakh sugarcane cutters in the Beed district who have to migrate for work every year. There is no registered number of such workers either,” he said, adding not much has been done to improve health, education and drinking water facilities either.

MP report card unimpressive

Pritam’s work and participation in Parliament has been at best lacklustre. As per data analysed under ThePrint’s My543, a platform to discuss the performance of MPs, Pritam has a 55 per cent attendance in Parliament, way below the national average of 80 per cent. She has participated in 32 debates, again much lower than the national average of 60.2 and hasn’t introduced any private member bills.

She has, however, excelled in the number of questions she asked — 422 as against an average of 267 per MP — mostly on issues of health, agriculture, finance and railways.

Another aspect where Pritam’s performance has been uninspiring is the use of local area development funds that MPs are entitled to spend. She has spent 58.58 per cent of her funds and is the worst performer among all 48 MPs in Maharashtra.

Mayank Gandhi, a former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) politician who now works as an activist in Beed’s Parli village, said people still seem to like her a lot.

“I can’t comment on the work that Pritam Munde has done, but the people in the district have good things to say about her. They say she is accessible. They favour the whole family, and in Parli, also have photos of Gopinath Munde in temples,” Gandhi said.

Challenge from another dynast

In 2014, there was a huge sympathy wave that drafted Pritam’s win, with the bypoll held within four months of Gopinath Munde’s death.

This time, the going could be tougher.

Pritam is battling Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) Bajrang Sonawane, for whom her estranged cousin, Dhananjay Munde, is aggressively campaigning. Dhananjay quit the BJP when Gopinath Munde decided to promote his daughter, Pankaja, over him, and has now been locked in a constant tussle with his cousin to claim the veteran BJP leader’s political legacy in Beed.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar too held a rally in the district last week, praising Dhananjay Munde for continuing his uncle’s legacy.

Moreover, this time, Pritam, a Vanjari (an OBC sub caste) may also lose some of the Maratha votes in the constituency with Shiv Sangram MLC Vinayak Mete having decided to work against the Munde sisters, though he supports the National Democratic Alliance.

Although a bit player in the state, Mete, who is head of the committee that steers the mid-sea Shivaji memorial project, holds some sway within the Maratha community. In a constituency with a significant Vanjari and Maratha population, this could dent some of Pritam’s Maratha votes.