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Injustice done… (but) will continue to work for BJP: Mukta Tilak’s family

Soon after announcing Rasane's candidature on Saturday, the party rushed one of its top leaders to the residence of Mukta Tilak. Girish Bapat interacted with the family and urged them to continue working for it.

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The party rushed one of its top leaders to the residence of deceased MLA Mukta Tilak to placate the family which had been gearing up to contest the seat.
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A DAY after the BJP announced Hemant Rasane as its candidate for Kasba Peth bypoll, skipping the kin of Mukta Tilak in the process, the husband of the deceased MLA said that injustice had been done to the memory of his wife. Shailesh Tilak, however, made it clear that the Tilak family would continue to support the BJP.

“We knew it was coming. When Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis met us on Friday, he had given indications that the ticket will not be given to us. But we were hoping that it will finally come our way… We feel that injustice has been done to the memory of my wife who worked relentlessly for the party and Kasba constituency,” Mukta’s husband Shailesh Tilak told The Indian Express on Sunday.

Asked whether the family will work for the party candidate, Shailesh said, “We have already started working for this election to help the party and we will continue our work.”

Soon after announcing Rasane’s candidature on Saturday, the party rushed one of its top leaders to the residence of Mukta Tilak. Girish Bapat interacted with the family and urged them to continue working for it.

Though jolted by the denial of ticket, the Tilak family has agreed to support the party. In a bid to ease the situation, Mukta’s son Kunal Tilak has been elevated as a party spokesperson. Kunal is also the editor of the party’s Yuva Morcha magazine.

On Rasane, Shailesh Tilak said, “Rasane came to meet us in the evening after his name was announced…He has not sought our support so far.”

A former corporator, Rasane has thrice served as the standing committee chairperson of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). His name had been doing rounds for quite some time before Rasane finally got the nod.

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The Tilak family also seemed upset for being overlooked even as deceased BJP MLA Laxman Jagtap’s wife has been given the ticket for the Chinchwad bypoll. “They should have applied a similar yardstick for us,” Shailesh said.

In addition, the Tilaks also seemed irked with “those who worked with Mukta Tilak” not proposing her husband’s name for the bypoll. “There is a very short period to go before the current MLA’s term ends. Those who worked with my wife should have at least proposed the name of her family member for this short period, but they did not,” Shailesh Tilak said.

He pointed out that there is no MLA from the Brahmin community in Pune. “If representation had been given to the Brahmin community, it would have been better. Currently, there are no MLAs from the community,” 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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