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BJP’s Madha candidate Ranjitsinh Naik Nimbalkar faces revolt, Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil heads towards NCP (SP)

The Ranjitsinh Naik Nimbalkar camp has been uneasy after veteran BJP leader Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil met Sharad Pawar.

madha lok sabhaVijaysinh Mohite-Patil (left) and Ranjitsinh Naik Nimbalkar (right). (Photo: X/@VMohitePatil/@MLARAJESHPAWAR)

The BJP’s Madha MP Ranjitsinh Naik Nimbalkar is facing stiff opposition from party leaders and workers after he was renominated from the Lok Sabha seat. However, Nimbalkar said he was picked by the party after a thoughtful process and was confident he would sail through.

While speaking to The Indian Express, Nimbalkar said, “Such things happen during election time. There is nothing new in this. But I am fully confident that our top leaders will resolve the issue and the storm will soon blow over”.

“I have elective merit and therefore the party has refielded me. The party thinks from all angles before fielding a candidate. It did the same thing in the 2019 elections and even now after considering all possible angles, it has zeroed on me to represent the party in the next Lok Sabha,” he said.

The Nimbalkar camp has been uneasy after veteran leader Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil met NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) chief Sharad Pawar in Madha on Sunday. Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, who was earlier with the NCP but joined the BJP during the 2019 elections, is seeking to contest on a Nationalist Congress Party ticket.

After Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil met Sharad Pawar, the BJP immediately sent its trouble-shooter Girish Mahajan to pacify him. Mahajan on Sunday met Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil and tried to pacify him and his angry supporters. “I will inform Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis about the demands of Mohite-Patil’s supporters and his views as well…The issue will be sorted out,” he said.

Meanwhile, NCP (SP) Maharashtra spokesperson Mahesh Tapase said, “It is true that Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil had our party chief and held a discussion. We can’t reveal anything at this juncture”.

However, NCP (SP) insiders said Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil will be fielded from the Madha seat by the party.

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Nimbalkar, however, dismissed any such idea. “Nobody will go anywhere. Our top party leaders are capable of addressing the issue. When I and Mohite-Patil joined the BJP during the 2019 elections, the party leaders themselves had made it clear that I would be contesting from the Madha seat,” he said.

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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