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Sanjay Raut claims Shinde’s Sena MLAs in touch with Uddhav Sena, Mhaske dismisses it

Shiv Sena spokesperson Naresh Mhaske rubbishes Raut's claim, says infact Uddhav Sena MLAs "want to join our party."

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut. (Express Photo)Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut. (Express Photo)

Days after Rohit Pawar MLA claimed that close to 20 MLAs of Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are planning to cross over to Sharad Pawar faction, Shiv Sena (UBT) under Uddhav Thackeray has revealed that the Sena legislators from Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s camp are in touch with them.

”The MLAs are not in touch with me but are in touch with our party leaders. After their defeat in the Lok Sabha, they (MLAs in Shinde camp) have realised where they stand and therefore have gotten in touch with our leaders,” Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut told The Indian Express on Saturday.

Raut said no decision or thought have been given to whether to take back such MLAs. ”We have not yet thought about it,” he said.

Rubbishing Raut’s claim, Shiv Sena spokesperson Naresh Mhaske claimed that two newly elected MPs of Uddhav Sena are in touch with them. “In fact, the MLAs of Uddhav Sena are in touch with us and want to join our party”.

“The two MPs don’t like the way the Sena has deviated from its ideology. Since there is disqualification issue involved, the two MPs said they will get back after convincing six MPs to join hands with Shiv Sena,” Mhaske said.

Mhaske said the Uddhav Sena MPs won in the recently held Lok Sabha election on the votes they got from a particular section of society.

“They (Uddhav Sena) do not have support of all sections of society. The Assembly elections will show them their place,” he said.

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Earlier this week, Rohit Pawar had claimed that 18-19 MLAs of Ajit Pawar’s NCP were in touch with party chief Sharad Pawar. ”They are eager to return but our party chief will take the final decision. We will take the decision based on how a particular MLA has behaved. Whether he has been highly critical of our leader or has not stopped very low in criticising our leader. Those who have been offensive will not be taken,” he had said.

After the BJP-led alliance faced a setback in the Lok Sabha elections, winning only 17 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra, speculations are rife about rebel Sena and NCP MLAs who walked out of the Opposition camp, returning back to parent parties. The political development assumes significance ahead of the Assembly elections in Maharashtra which are likely in October.

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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  • Eknath Shinde NCP leader Ajit Pawar Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray Shiv Sena MLA
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