Kasba Peth bypoll: Ready to field Tilak family member if MVA agrees to unopposed election, says BJP

BJP leader and Pune District Guardian Minister Chandrakant Patil said on Monday, “If the MVA or the Congress agrees to an unopposed election, we will field someone from the Tilak family and withdraw our nominated candidate.”

Patil further informed the Assembly, “The students did not make any complaints of any nature during the NSS camp. However, since the incident came to light, the professor was suspended." (File)

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A day before the last date for filing nominations for the Kasba Peth Assembly bypoll, the BJP has offered to withdraw its nominated candidate and field a family member of deceased legislator Mukta Tilak on the condition that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) agrees to unopposed elections in the constituency.

The deceased MLA’s husband, Shailesh Tilak, though, said the first action in this regard should come from the BJP.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) offer came in response to a statement by state Congress president Nana Patole on Sunday, when he said that injustice has been done to the Tilak family with nominations being denied to her husband or son.

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When asked about Patole’s contention, BJP leader and Pune District Guardian Minister Chandrakant Patil said on Monday, “If the MVA or the Congress agrees to an unopposed election, we will field someone from the Tilak family and withdraw our nominated candidate.”

Patil, however, went on to add: “Patole is saying for the sake of saying…We will not take it for granted. We are fully prepared to contest the poll. We have given a candidate from (Laxman) Jagtap family in Chinchwad…why are they trying to field a candidate there?”

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

BJP state president Chandrashekhar Bawankule, who was also present, said he has already appealed to top MVA leaders to withdraw their candidates. “There is still time for withdrawal of candidates. They can do so in next 48 hours,” he added.

On Saturday, the BJP had nominated Hemant Rasane as its candidate for Kasba, ignoring the claims of Shailesh and Kunal Tilak, husband and son respectively of Mukta Tilak. It was Tilak’s demise in December that necessitated the bypoll in the constituency.

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BJP spokesperson Sandeep Khardekar told The Indian Express, “The party is ready to withdraw its candidate if Patole lives up to his word. If the Congress and the MVA agree, we will field a Tilak family member. We have been calling for an unopposed election so that unnecessary expenditure of public money is saved.”

When contacted, Shailesh Tilak said, “If BJP leaders are talking of withdrawing the nominated candidate, they should first withdraw their candidate and announce our name. Only then the Congress can be expected to agreee to unopposed election. The first action should come from the BJP…” Shailesh Tilak added, “If our family was given the BJP ticket, Mukta’s dream would have been realised.”

Congress leader Rohit Tilak said, “Our Tilak family is hurt by the way Mukta Tilak and her family have been treated by BJP. Though I am in the Congress, this concerns our family. I was with Muktatai till the last. She served her party till the last moment and now injustice has been done to her family.”

Manoj Dattatrye More

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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