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Eknath Shinde says he is not upset, nothing wrong in demanding guardian ministership

Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut said the BJP was "trying to dump" Eknath Shinde and propping up Shiv Sena minister Uday Samant.

Eknath ShindeWhen asked about the stay on the decision on Raigad and Nashik districts’ guardian ministership, Shinde said, “All issues will get resolved, a solution will be found on this issue”. (File Image)

Days after the Maharashtra Government stayed its decision regarding guardian ministers of the state’s Raigad and Nashik districts, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde Monday denied that he was upset over the issue.

Over the weekend, the Maharashtra government appointed NCP’s Aditi Tatkare and BJP’s Girish Mahajan as the guardian ministers of the Raigad and Nasik districts and then rescinded the decision. Reportedly unhappy that his party’s ministers Bharat Gogawale and Dadaji Bhuse were neglected for these posts, Eknath Shinde left for his Daregaon village in the state’s Satara district.

“The media is saying that I am upset. I am not upset. I have to visit my village in connection with the New Mahabaleshwar project. If I come here, people say I am upset. But I am busy working on the project here. Not just this, I will have to visit this place regularly. I will have to visit the area from Pratapgad to Patan. There are 235 villages included in this project. As many as 295 more villages are demanding their inclusion. This project will help Satara emerge as the tourist district of Maharashtra. I belong to this area, I am the son of the soil, I will make all efforts for this purpose,” Shinde told reporters in Daregaon.

“My aim is to the completely change face of this place. We will develop all places which have the potential to develop into tourist spots,” he added.

When asked about the stay on the decision on Raigad and Nashik districts’ guardian ministership, Shinde said, “All issues will get resolved, a solution will be found on this issue”.

Asked about Shiv Sena leader Bharat Gogawale’s demand that he be made Raigad’s guardian minister, Shinde said there is “nothing wrong in expecting to be made the district guardian minister”. “Gogawale has worked in Raigad for many years. Therefore, his demand is not wrong. We will find a way out. I will discuss the issue with the chief minister and our other deputy CM.”

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut said, “Instead of going to Daregaon, Shinde should have gone to Kumbh Mela”.

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Raut also said the BJP was propping up Sena minister Uday Samant. “Samant has the support of 20 MLAs. The BJP is propping Samant and is trying to dump Shinde. It tried this earlier too,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Congress MLA and former LoP Vijay Wadettiwar also questioned Shinde’s repeated visits to his village and talked about Industries Minister Uday Samant. “One might see the uday (rise) of some other leader, just how Eknath Shinde was brought in to counter Uddhav Thackeray,” he said without naming Samant

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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