Shiv Sena sides with Pankaja Munde on her visiting Chhagan Bhujbal

The Shiv Sena has praised state women and child development minister Pankaja Munde for visiting ailing NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal — who is also an accused in a money-laundering case — in a hospital. Taking a dig at the NCP, the party said that NCP chief Sharad Pawar should take ‘lessons on humanity’ from her in this regard.

Ms Munde called on Bhujbal on Wednesday and spent around half an hour with him. The Sena said that late BJP leader Gopinath Munde, Ms Munde’s father, would have shown the same courage as she had displayed by visiting Bhujbal.

Bhujbal, who is in judicial custody, is currently recuperating at the state-run J.J. Hospital after he fell ill a few days ago. “We feel sorry for the state Bhujbal is in today. The NCP, for which Bhujbal wronged late Sena chief Bal Thackeray, has today left him in the lurch. We thus feel surprised at Pankaja Munde’s courage to visit him in the hospital,” an editorial in the Sena mouthpiece, Saamana, said.

Ms Munde’s visit to Bhujbal, however, has triggered speculations that she wants to flaunt the ‘backward classes card’ by calling on Bhujbal, who hails from the OBC community.