BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday inaugurated ‘Gopinath Gadh’, a memorial to BJP leader Gopinath Munde in his hometown of Parli, on the OBC leader’s birth anniversary and credited him for building the party in Maharashtra.
“I pay homage to Gopinath Munde on behalf of crores of BJP activists. BJP is a successful party in the State and Munde had laid the foundation of this success. He expanded the party’s social base and connected it to the poor and backward in the state,” said Mr Shah while addressing a rally at the memorial built on 18 acres of land on the premises of the Vaidyanath Co-operative Sugar Mill.
The BJP’s other backward classes (OBC) face in Maharashtra, Mr Munde was killed in a car accident in New Delhi shortly after Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister in May, 2014. Mr Munde was holding the rural development portfolio in the Central government.
Mr Shah also lauded Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for his ‘clean governance’. “I am sure that under his leadership, Maharashtra will regain the numero uno spot. His governance has been so clean that the Opposition hasn’t been able to level corruption charges,” he added.
The BJP president used the occasion to emphasise on the pro-farmer initiatives of the Modi government.
“The government has launched the ‘soil health card’ scheme for farmers, and all farmers will get the cards by 2019. A sum of Rs 75,000 crore has been provided per year for irrigation development,” he said.
Mr Fadnavis said the Gopinath Munde-led Sangharsh Yatra was the first trigger for political transformation in the state in favour of the BJP. He said his government has launched an accident insurance scheme named after Munde and a new national rural development institute will also be named after him.
His daughter and Water Conservation and Women and Child Development Minister Pankaja Munde said the memorial has been developed with money donated by the working class, which revered Mr Munde.
‘Gopinath Gadh’ will be the centre of activity, she said, adding her father rose from being a sugarcane cutter’s son to become the founder of a sugar factory and then the state’s Deputy Chief Minister in the Shiv Sena-led government that ruled from 1995 to 1999.
