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Riteish Deshmukh tells brother Amit ‘time to take decision’, Cong MLA says not leaving party

Former Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh's son and Latur MLA Amit Deshmukh again denies speculation that he will join BJP.

Ritesh deshmukhRitesh said his father and his uncle Diliprao Deshmukh worked as a team. (Photo: FB/Amit V. Deshmukh )

Actor Riteish Deshmukh told his brother and Congress MLA Amit Deshmukh that ”time has come for him to take a decision”, though the latter denied any plans of quitting the Congress amid speculations that he, just like former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, maybe joining the BJP.

“Time has come for you to take a decision…Latur has many expectations from you, but Maharahstra too has many expectations,” Ritesh told his brother as he concluded his speech durig the inauguration of a statue of Vilasrao Deshmukh in Latur.

President of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee Nana Patole, former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, senior Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat and several other dignitaries were present on the occasion.

The actor however did not elaborate what decision he expected his brother to take. There have been speculations that Amit Deshmukh might join BJP and follow in the footsteps of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan.

However, Amit Deshmukh said he was not quitting the Congress as his ties with the party are as strong as were his father’s.

“If we recall the days of Vilasrao Deshmukh, we will realise the importance of being a loyalist. Vilasrao epitomised loyalty and how one should work for the party. There was a time when Congress had decided to take action against him. That time Vilasrao had told journalists that ‘even if they remove him from the party, how will they remove Congress from my blood?’. His statement holds significance today. People are speculating about me as well… I have told people that I am comfortable where I am,” said the Latur MLA.

On Friday too, Amit Deshmukh denied any plans of leaving the Congress amid speculations that he maybe joining the BJP.

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Meanwhile, Riteish, who made the opening remarks, broke down when he recalled the memories of his father. ”It has been 12 years since he passed, but we still feel the void in our heart every minute,” he said.

Ritesh continued in the same vein, recalling the strong relation his father and uncle Diliprao Deshmukh shared. ”They both supported each other. Though my father passed away, our uncle Diliprao Deshmukh is always with us, supporting us and play an important role in our

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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