Beed turns into a social hotspot as Munde hosts daughter's wedding

Beed turns into a social hotspot as Munde hosts daughter's wedding
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

BEED, MARCH 12: Parli-Vaijnath, a dusty, obscure town in the remote Beed district of Maharashtra, turned into a celebrity hotspot on Monday as everyone who matters in Maharashtra's power corridors and his uncle turned up in their best evening attire to wish Gopinath Munde's daughter a ``happy, married life.''

The man who drew all the attention was, of course, Munde himself. The former deputy chief minister is now just an MLA in the pecking order apart from being a party functionary. So the BJP leaders were obviously obliged to be present for the occasion, but it speaks for the measure of respect that the man commands that virtually the entire Democratic Front government was there as well.

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal, opposition leaders in the legislature Narayan Rane and Nitin Gadkari and half a dozen cabinet ministers from the government left for Beed on Monday immediately after the day's proceedings in the legislature.

Munde's daughter Pankaja, who owns a travel business, married a US-based businessman, Dr. Charudutt Palve who deals in computers. The wedding, held in Munde's own hometown, was entirely a VVIP show all the way through, a place to be seen at.

The only face missing was Sharad Pawar. He preferred to stay back in Mumbai, under the pretext of the YB Chavan Prathisthan award ceremony despite his arch foe Munde extending an invitation. Many NCP ministers in the cabinet also took their cue from Pawar.

Specially chartered airplanes and choppers had been lined up to ferry the VVIPs for the occasion. Regular flights of Indian Airlines and Jet Airways were also packed with the `shaahi baaratis'. Jet had arranged a special flight in response to the demands of the VVIP travellers.

Chief Minister Deshmukh, his deputy Bhujbal and at least half a dozen cabinet ministers left for Beed in two planes. One was a seven-seater state government plane while another was provided by Reliance Industries. There were also some choppers pressed into service to fly the dignataries either to Latur or Aurangabad airport. The helicopters were either hired or taken from business houses like Enron and Shirke Constructions.

The wedding ceremony was obviously top priority on the agenda of the BJP leaders in the state. Several party leaders close to Munde preferred to be in Beed supervising the wedding arrangements instead of attending the first day proceedings of the state legislature.

Sena-BJP legislators, who did not want to skip the proceedings, flew to Aurangabad by Indian Airlines or Jet Airways' planes and then drove to Munde's hometown to attend the wedding. A fleet of cars were kept ready at Aurangabad and Latur airports to ferry the VVIPs to Parli-Vaijnath.