A day after he rattled the BJP by stepping down from all party positions, senior leader Gopinath Munde remained defiant, not responding to the party’s call to visit Delhi and deputing two emissaries instead.

As Maharashtra BJP legislators met and expressed faith in his leadership, Munde kept the party guessing by meeting ministers in the ruling Congress-NCP dispensation.

Later in the day, Munde visited Matoshree, the home of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. He told reporters earlier that Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray had called him on Sunday, asking him to reconsider his decision in the interest of the saffron alliance.

From the Vanjari community (de-notified tribe in Maharashtra, regarded as an OBC caste elsewhere), Munde hit at the very ideological moorings of the Parivar he has stayed with for over four decades: “I want to make the BJP more Bahujan-oriented.” If the idiom was borrowed from the BSP lexicon, the target was clearly his rival and state BJP president Nitin Gadkari, a Brahmin by birth.

Munde made it a point to break bread with another OBC leader, NCP’s Chhagan Bhujbal. NCP’s tribal leader Madhukar Pichad and Tourism Minister Vijaysinh Mohite Patil were also there. He was also in talks, sources said, with the NCP leadership.

Munde said he would quit the state Assembly and undertake a statewide Samvad Yatra (establishing a dialogue with the masses). He told his confidants that he would float his own outfit if he found the going smooth during the yatra. A senior BJP leader, keeping tabs on the maharashtra developments, however, made light of the claim, saying it was some “smart muscle flexing at best”.

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