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Home  » News » Gopinath Munde withdraws resignation

Gopinath Munde withdraws resignation

Source: PTI
Last updated on: April 22, 2008 20:30 IST
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Senior Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde on Tuesday withdrew his resignation from the party general secretary post.

"I am satisfied with my discussions with the party leadership," Munde told reporters.

Munde had earlier said that he would stay in the party and that had never thought of joining any other platform.

"I have been with the BJP for the last 30 years and I will stay in the party. I have never thought of joining any other platform. I will never think of it," Munde, who had created a flutter by resigning from all party posts on Sunday, told reporters in Delhi on his arrival from Mumbai.

Munde, who met senior BJP leader L K Advani, said, "I will place my grievances before the party high command. I will respect whatever decision they take."

Party president Rajnath Singh, after a meeting of the BJP parliamentary party, said the crisis in its Maharashtra unit will be resolved "amicably".

"There is no crisis. Gopinath Munde is in Delhi today and I am sure that misunderstanding, if any, will be resolved amicably," Rajnath Singh told reporters. The meeting was attended by Advani and other senior BJP leaders.

Munde had said on Sunday that the party had not been functioning in a democratic manner, which led him to take the decision.

Meanwhile, the BJP on Tuesday removed Madhu Chavan as its Mumbai unit President whose appointment to the post raised the hackles of its senior leader Gopinath Munde.

"Gopal Shetty has been appointed as Mumbai President in place of him," state president of BJP Nitin Gadkari said. Shetty, a first-time MLA from Borivili in Mumbai and a former corporator, has risen to the post of Mumbai party president from the grassroots level.

According to party sources, a three-member committee comprising senior BJP leaders Ram Naik, Vedprakash Goyal and Bal Apte had short-listed three names, which included Madhu Chavan, Kirit Somaiya and Gopal Shetty, for the post of city unit chief.

Somaiya is already a Maharashtra BJP vice-president and convenor of the party's economic cell at the Central level.

Even though Munde was eager to have Somaiya as the city unit chief, the latter made it known to the leadership that he was active at the state-level and the Central level and so he would not like to be involved in city unit politics, sources said.

Since Munde was averse to having Chavan as party president, the central leadership might have zeroed in on Shetty's name, sources added.

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