Watch Video: How Pune MP Murlidhar Mohol Learned About His MoS Appointment

In his first term as a Member of Parliament (MP), Pune MP Murlidhar Mohol made it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Cabinet. He was appointed Minister of State (MoS) for Civil Aviation and Cooperation. In a recent interview with a Marathi news channel, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader shared that he was shocked and surprised when he received a call from his party chief JP Nadda asking him to come to take the oath as a minister.

Mohol said, "The party chief's assistant called me when I was asleep. He said that the chief wanted to talk to me. The chief asked me where I was to which I replied I was in Delhi. He then told me to come to the Prime Minister's House at 11am and said in the evening I would have to take the oath. After the call got disconnected, I didn't understand what to do, whom to tell."

The former Pune mayor said that despite all the happiness that has come his way in the past few days, he was missing former Union Minister Gopinath Munde. "I was very close to him. He loved me a lot. I always feel that if Munde Saheb was here today, he would have been very happy. He should have been here to see this."

In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, Mohol defeated Congress candidate Ravindra Dhangekar by 1,23,038 votes. This was the third consecutive victory for the saffron party in Pune, with Anil Shirole winning in 2014 and Girish Bapat bagging the seat in 2019.