Gopinath Munde skips BJP meet, files nomination for MCA president

Bharatiya Janata Partyrsquos BJP top brass in the state were left scratching their heads after their senior leader Gopinath Munde spun a wrong lsquoun by skipping a crucial meet with the national president Rajnath Singh yesterday Padding up for a new innings Senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde hands over his nomination form for the post of MCA president to the cricket bodyrsquos CEO C S Naik yesterday PicBipin Kokate Singh had called for a meeting with the state unit and top leaders to discuss strategy for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections However Munde the exstate BJP president and currently amongst the top leaders in state decided to give this meeting a slip and proceeded to the Mumbai Cricket Association MCA to file his nomination for the presidential post Munde did return for the meeting at 6 pm which was being held at Rangsharda in Bandra W after filing his nomination but it was too late as the meeting was concluding What set tongues wagging was that Munde had initially decided to file the nomination at 1 pm as the meeting was scheduled for 4 pm but he left the hall at 330 pm and reached MCA at 445 pm Moreover it wasnrsquot the last day to file nominations as the deadline is October 11 Too late According to a party insider Munde returned when the meeting was about to get over He said ldquoWe thought that today was the last day to file nominations for the MCA presidential elections and hence were under the impression that Mundeji was in a hurry and therefore chose to give the meeting a slip But only later we realised that it was not the last day and are trying to figure out why he chose to file his nomination today and not attend the meeting that was for the pollsrdquo ldquoHe Munde has the biggest mass following in the state and he knows Maharashtra politics better than anyone else in the party He isnrsquot someone who should skip such crucial meets which was attended by all top leaders that are meant to chalk out the future strategy for electionsrdquo said another leader from the party Giving Munde the benefit of the doubt state BJP chief Devendra Fadnavis said ldquoYes Mundeji came a bit late but he had the permission of the national president Rajnathji to go for the filing of the nomination of MCA He came and presented his part He didnrsquot miss anything important in the meetingrdquo Munde speaks at MCA Munde did not comment on why he skipped the meeting But he did speak on why he decided to contest the MCA elections and his cricket plans for the state ldquoThere is no attention given towards the welfare of the clubs They MCA do not give any support to clubs Cricketers come up from these clubs Thatrsquos when I felt the need to fight One of the issues that I came across while talking to club members is pertaining to one of the issues at the BandraKurla Complex club where Shirke has been given the charge of developing the club 1500 memberships are with the MCA and clubs were promised these memberships but nothing has been done so farrdquo ldquoAnother thing I noticed is that the BCCI gives Rs 35 to 40 crore every year to the MCA It was decided to set aside Rs 5 crore every year as corpus fund It was done only for one year It should have been done annually Garware Club House has been given around 1 lakh FSI Floor Space Index by the MCA But nobody knows what is the whole deal about Whether it is on rent or if we have sold it to themhellip there are many questions regarding that The secret agreement between the MCA and Garware needs to be made public I will try to bring all such issues to light Mumbai is the hub of cricket If clubs are strengthened Mumbai cricket will prosperrdquo Speaking about politics and cricket Munde said ldquoI would not like to mix politics with sports I am not against any individual I am the first applicant to file my nomination for the presidentrsquos post I have no idea who will contest against me I had earlier decided to contest the vicepresidentrsquos post but looking at the support I decided to contest for the presidentrsquos post This is not a political battlerdquo Harit Joshiu00a0 u00a0