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This is an archive article published on May 5, 2023

Amid Pawar politics and defection rumours, NCP MP Amol Kolhe promotes his play

Promoting his play Shiv Putra Sambhaji in Pimpri Chinchwad, Shirur MP Amol Kolhe refused to confirm or deny that he was set to join the BJP.

amol KolheKolhe, the Shirur MP known for essaying the role of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj in TV serials, refused to confirm or deny that he was likely to join BJP.
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Amid Pawar politics and defection rumours, NCP MP Amol Kolhe promotes his play
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The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) may have plunged into turmoil following Sharad Pawar’s resignation as party president but it hasn’t stopped party MP Amol Kolhe from promoting his play Shiv Putra Sambhaji even as he chose to keep mum about a possible defection to the BJP.

“I will speak in detail about politics on May 17,” Kolhe told reporters on Thursday in Pimpri Chinchwad, where he announced the staging of the play at H A Ground from May 11 to May 16.

Kolhe, the Shirur MP known for essaying the role of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj in TV serials, refused to confirm or deny that he was likely to join BJP.

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Asked about his meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah last year in Delhi, Kolhe said, “I have not held any meeting with any BJP leader. If you hold a discussion with your rival party, it does not mean that one is joining that party. In politics, holding discussions is necessary.”

Kolhe said he was away from all that was happening at NCP headquarters in Mumbai because he was busy promoting his play. “Though I am busy staging my play, I have been in touch with my party leaders. After the resignation of our party chief, I have spoken to our top leaders and tried to make sense of the unfolding events,” he said.

Days after Sharad Pawar announced he was stepping down as NCP president, an 18-member party committee on Friday unanimously rejected his resignation.

“I came to know about our party chief’s resignation as president from the media. I don’t want to comment much about it. But in the last six years, Maharashtra politics has revolved around senior leader Sharad Pawar and Bal Thackeray. I am sure he will take the decision regarding the party’s presidency after deep thought. Entire Maharashtra knows it,” Kolhe said.

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Kolhe also denied there was a rift in the NCP. “Looking at the committee that has been set up to pick a president, I do not think there are two groups in the party as is being speculated,” he said.

Kolhe, who was the party’s star campaigner in the 2019 elections, was kept out of the party’s list of star campaigners from the recent Gujarat elections. Last year, amidst speculation about the possibility of his joining the BJP, Kolhe had told The Indian Express, “I am not an astrologer to predict the future.”

Kolhe, who entered politics with Shiv Sena, joined NCP in 2019 and won from Shirur constituency, unseating three-time MP Shivajirao Adhalrao-Patil.

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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