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This is an archive article published on March 22, 2024

Cong fields Shinde for Solapur LS seat | Flatly refused BJP, firm believer in Cong ideology: Praniti Shinde

The BJP — which had already made up its mind to dump sitting Solapur MP Siddeshwar Shivacharya, a seer — had been trying to woo her into its fold, but she refused. The party has been struggling to find a candidate.

Praniti Shinde, Solapur LS seat, congress solapur candidate, Congress ideology, Lok Sabha elections, Sushil Kumar Shinde, indian express newsPraniti Shinde who already started campaigning has been aggressively taking on the BJP in Solapur for its perceived failure to push the district's development. (File Photo/Facebook_

Praniti Shinde, sitting MLA and daughter of former chief minister and Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, was today fielded by the Congress from the Solapur Lok Sabha constituency, which the party had lost badly in the last two elections.

Praniti’s name was cleared by the party’s central working committee on Wednesday and the list of eight candidates out of the total of 18 that the Congress will see contesting in the state was declared late Thursday evening.

Praniti Shinde who already started campaigning has been aggressively taking on the BJP in Solapur for its perceived failure to push the district’s development.

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The BJP — which had already made up its mind to dump sitting Solapur MP Siddeshwar Shivacharya, a seer — had been trying to woo her into its fold, but she refused. The party has been struggling to find a candidate.

”I am born and brought up in Congress culture. How can I do away with the Congress ideology of secularism?” Praniti Shinde said when asked about the BJP’s offer.

The revelation about BJP’s offer to her came from her father Sushil Kumar Shinde two days ago. At a rally in Solapur, Sushil Kumar Shinde said the BJP had been putting pressure on Praniti to quit Congress and join the party. ”But Praniti is a die-hard Congress woman. She can never imagine dumping the Congress ideology. She has always worked for the people from all sections of the society and continues to serve them,” said the former CM.

Praniti said the BJP had been pursuing her for sometime. ”Last year, they tried couple of times to get me into the party. But I flatly refused. I am a loyal Congress leader and strongly believe in the Congress ideology,” she said.

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When asked whether she had already begun campaigning, Praniti said she was an MLA from Solapur constituency and had been going around and meeting the people.

Praniti contesting from Solapur means she will have to work hard to get the family’s honour back. Her father had lost the seat two consecutive times. In 2014, he lost to Sharad Bansode of BJP by a margin of over 3,60,000 votes and in 2019, he lost against to a BJP candidate by a big margin of over 1,50,000 votes.

Siddeshwar Shivacharya defeated him from Solapur seat where the Congress otherwise had dominated for years.

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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