Ajit Pawar’s absence triggers talk of ‘political illness’; ‘Honeymoon over in 3 months,’ says Supriya Sule
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is reportedly upset that his demand to appoint some of his ministers as district guardian ministers is still pending.
“It has just been three months since the triple engine government came to power…and I have heard that one faction is upset,” NCP MP Supriya Sule said. (File)
Listen to this articleYour browser does not support the audio element.
“Ajit Pawar seems to be suffering from political illness…He is apparently upset over the delay in appointment of district guardian ministers,” said Opposition leader Vijay Wadettiwar. Months after joining the Shinde-Fadnavis government, a few ministers from the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are yet to be assigned responsibilities as district guardian ministers.
You’ve Read Your Free Stories For Now
Sign up and keep reading more stories that matter to you.
“It has just been three months since the triple engine government came to power…and I have heard that one faction is upset,” NCP MP Supriya Sule said. “I heard that the faction which is upset met Fadnavis and conveyed their resentment to him. In three months, the honeymoon is not yet over, and already problems have started cropping up. In just three months, such news is surfacing…Who is running the government?” she asked.
Amid speculation that all is not well with the ruling alliance, Shinde maintained that Ajit Pawar did not attend the cabinet meeting as he was unwell. “There is no need to draw any other conclusion,” Shinde, who left for Delhi along with Fadnavis on Tuesday evening, said.
NCP minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who belongs to the Ajit Pawar faction, said, “Ajit dada had a throat infection and therefore could not go to Delhi. Today (Tuesday), the cabinet meeting was held and we received a message that he was not well. If Ajit dada could not make it to the cabinet meeting from his residence, how will he go to Delhi?”
Asked if Ajit Pawar was suffering from “political illness”, Bhujbal said, “Never”.
NCP spokesperson Sanjay Tatkare also told The Indian Express that Ajit Pawar has a throat infection. “He is not in a position to speak and has a little fever as well. He is taking rest at home,” he said.
Story continues below this ad
According to NCP sources, Ajit Pawar is upset as his demand to appoint some of his ministers as district guardian ministers is pending. He has demanded the district guardian ministership for Chhagan Bhujbal (Nashik), Hasan Mushrif (Kolhapur), Dhananjay Munde (Beed) and Aditi Tatkare (Raigad).
The Ajit Pawar group is also pressing for the district guardianship of Satara. “In both Raigad and Satara, Shinde Sena ministers are the guardian ministers. Shambhuraj Desai, in fact, is the minister for Thane and Satara. We are demanding Satara…In Raigad, Shinde Sena minister Uday Samant is the guardian minister. We are seeking Raigad for Tatkare,” he said.
In Pune, BJP leader Chandrakant Patil is the district guardian minister, a post that Ajit Pawar wants for himself. The BJP, however, is reluctant to give it up.
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
