Vishal Patil filing his nomination papers in Sangli on Monday. (Express Photo)
SPRINGING a surprise, Vishal Patil , who was supposed to file his nomination from Sangli for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on Tuesday, went ahead with the process on Monday and submitted his nomination papers to the election officer.
He filed two nomination papers, one as an independent candidate and another as Congress candidate, though he has not been nominated by the party.
”Vishal Patil filed his nomination papers today, both as an independent as well as a Congress candidate,” Vikram Sawant, Congress MLA and president of the Sangli unit of the party told The Indian Express on Monday evening. Patil is set to hold a rally in Sangli on Tuesday as a show of strength.
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On being asked why Patil filed his nomination paper as a Congress candidate, Sawant said, “This is because we are still hopeful that Shiv Sena (UBT) will ask its candidate to step down. The Sena, keeping in mind the response the Congress is getting, may ask its candidate to step out of the ring.”
Patil had earlier decided to file his nomination papers on Tuesday even as the Congress summoned its leaders from Sangli to Nagpur on Monday. Grandson of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Vasantdada Patil, Vishal Patil was earlier pitched as the Congress candidate from Sangli but his name was dropped after the seat was claimed by Shiv Sena (UBT), which fielded Chandrahar Patil.
Both Congress MLAs Vikram Sawant and Vishwajeet Kadam were missing when Patil filed his nomination papers in Sangli on Monday as the leaders were in Nagpur to meet top Congress leaders. The party is likely to take up the issue with the Sena leadership and urge it to withdraw its candidate in the interest of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, said a Congress leader.
Vishwajeet Kadam, who has been at the forefront of demanding a party ticket for Vishal Patil, said it was Vishal Patil’s own decision to file nomination. “He has done it on his own, in his individual capacity……We are in Nagpur because party leaders have called us for a meeting,” Kadam said. The meeting, however, had not taken place till late evening.
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Sawant said Congress leaders and workers in Sangli are upset with the decision of the Shiv Sena (UBT) to field its candidate, despite the Lok Sabha constituency being a traditional bastion of the Grand Old Party.
The Congress’s Sangli unit also boycotted the meeting held by the Sena (UBT) on Monday. “We did not attend the meeting of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, which was held at the behest of the Shiv Sena (UBT),” said Sawant.
The Congress had earlier mooted a friendly fight in Sangli, which the Shiv Sena (UBT) had rejected. “A friendly fight means allowing the BJP to win the seat,” Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena UBT’s chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut had said.
Meanwhile, the BJP has nominated sitting MP Sanjaykaka Patil from Sangli.
Sangli will go to polls on May 7 in the third of the five-phase Lok Sabha election to be held in Maharashtra. The result is scheduled to be declared on June 4.
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.
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