Chief Minister Eknath Shinde during the event in Pimpri-Chinchwad on Friday. Express
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Ad row won’t affect BJP-Sena alliance… Fadnavis and I share a strong bond: CM Shinde
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Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Friday sought to assure BJP and Shiv Sena leaders that their alliance would not be affected by a “small” newspaper ad. But he expressed disappointment at the poor turnout for his event in Pimpri-Chinchwad.
Shinde, who arrived two hours late for the Shasan Aplya Daari (government at your doorstep) event in the afternoon, said, “The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, as evidenced by the presence of leaders from both parties on the stage, is firmly united. Devendra Fadnavis and I share a strong bond. No one should worry. Our alliance will not be affected by a small ad… Our alliance is not so weak… It has been formed based on a common ideology. The alliance was formed by Balasaheb Thackeray, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pramod Mahajan. Now under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we are moving forward.”
The chief minister said the first phase of Shasan Aplya Daari was underway. (Express Photo)
Shinde was referring to a front-page newspaper ad that hailed him as more popular than Deputy Chief Minister Fadnavis. The ad featuring the chief minister and the prime minister but not Fadnavis drew sharp reactions from some BJP leaders. The next day, in a bid to mollify the BJP, another front-page ad was published, featuring Fadnavis, among other leaders of the alliance.
The Sena leader also praised Modi. “Somebody has done a survey which has revealed that I and Devendra Fadnavis are doing a good job. But I feel proud and happy that in the survey, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as the most popular leader in the country. Nearly 84 per cent of the citizens have voted in his favour,” he said.
The event was scheduled to begin at 3 pm. The chief minister, however, arrived around 5 pm and spoke for nearly an hour. In the meantime, the crowd—which was given oral rehydration salt sachets to avoid a repeat of an event where several people died in Kharghar—were seen desperately searching for water bottles in the searing heat.
Their movements were, however, restricted by police, who were themselves fetching water bottles for the crowd, which included a large number of women.
The next day, in a bid to mollify the BJP, another front-page ad was published, featuring Fadnavis, among other leaders of the alliance. (Express Photo)
As he began to address the crowd under a shamiana at a ground near Shiv Sena MP Shrirang Barne’s home in Thergaon, Shinde appeared upset at the poor turnout. “At other places where I addressed the event, a crowd in the range of 60-70,000 was present… Some people told me that here the crowd is small, but it doesn’t matter. These are our own people. Next time, when the second round of this event is held, we should hold it at a bigger ground and in presence of a big crowd,” he said, turning to municipal commissioner Shekhar Singh and Sena MP Barne.
The chief minister said the first phase of Shasan Aplya Daari was underway. “It is being held in a phase-wise manner. There will be many more phases. We will ensure that the benefits of government schemes are made available even to the last person…We will not deprive anyone of the benefits of the government schemes,” he said.
“Today we are distributing a collective benefit of Rs 48 crore to over 95,000 citizens from the PCMC limits,” he said earlier.
The chief minister repeatedly taunted the MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray and praised his own government for having done a “good job” in the past 11 months it has been in power. “The previous government worked from home. We are working at the ground level and doing our best for the common man, farmers, labourers and women. We are trying to ensure that the maximum number of people get the benefit of the government welfare schemes,” he said.
“We have taken several people-oriented measures. Among them is a 50 per cent fare concession for women on state transport buses. Similarly, citizens over 75 years are getting free travel. So far nearly 2-3 crore elders have benefited from this scheme,” he added.
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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The chief minister said the first phase of Shasan Aplya Daari was underway. (Express Photo)
The next day, in a bid to mollify the BJP, another front-page ad was published, featuring Fadnavis, among other leaders of the alliance. (Express Photo)
