Sharad Pawar asked Gopinath Munde not to quit BJP: Sena leader

Munde and Pawar, BJP's frontline leader in Maharashtra with impressive mass following, had adversarial relationship in state politics.

However, like Pawar, Munde too did not allow political differences to overshadow personal equations and had friends across the political spectrum.  

The debate over Munde's ‘bad days' in the BJP was fuelled last week by Pandurang Phundkar, a senior BJP MLC, who while paying tributes to the late leader in the Legislative Council said he often sulked as he felt attempts were on by a section in the party to clip his wings after brother-in-law Pramod Mahajan's death in 2006.

“Munde was, at one point, planning to move to the Congress, which was ready to reward him with a ministerial post at the Centre,” Phundkar had claimed in the House.