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This is an archive article published on April 16, 2024

Lok Sabha polls: No Modi wave, says BJP candidate Navneet Rana; Opposition pounces on remark

Reacting to Rana’s statement, Shiv Sena (UBT) Spokesperson Sanjay Raut claimed the BJP will win only 45 seats across the country.

BJP Amravati candidate Navneet Rana, Amravati Lok Sabha candidatesRana made the statement while addressing a rally in her Amravati constituency on Monday. (Express photo by Renuka Puri/File)

A day after BJP Amravati candidate Navneet Rana claimed there was no “Modi wave”, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP and Shiv Sena (UBT) said on Tuesday she was speaking the truth which is evident in the desperation shown by the BJP is welcoming Opposition leaders into its fold.

Rana made the statement while addressing a rally in her Amravati constituency on Monday. The media was not allowed at the meeting but the video of her making the statement has now gone viral.

“We will have to fight this election as if it were a gram panchayat election. We will have to bring all the voters to the booth by 12 noon and tell them to vote. Don’t remain under the illusion that there is a Modi wave,” Rana said.

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For good measure, she added, “In the last elections, despite a Modi wave, I was elected as an Independent candidate”.

She had won the Amravati seat as an Independent candidate supported by the undivided NCP in 2019 and has been fielded by the BJP this time.

The Opposition NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) and the Shiv Sena (UBT) were quick to pounce on her statement.

Reacting to her claim, NCP (SP) chief spokesperson Mahesh Tapase said, “Whatever Rana has spoken is just the fact. She knows it and the BJP MPs know it. The BJP itself knows there is no Modi wave. And this is reflected in the way the party had gone all-out roping in one Opposition leader after the other. It has imported even those leaders whom it had accused of corruption. It had no alternative because it saw in those leaders the potential to win elections”.

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Tapase added there was panic in the BJP ranks and therefore they are asking their cadre to fight the Lok Sabha elections 2024 like the gram panchayat ones.

Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson, said, “Forget about the Modi wave. Whether Modi will be able to win his seat is the big question”.

“Our party chief Uddhav Thackeray has already said the BJP will get only 45 seats all over the country and Maha Vikas Aghadi will win all 48 seats in Maharashtra. Even the BJP’s own candidates are already speaking the truth and that too openly and loud and clear,” 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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