THE exclusion of key OBC leaders like Chhagan Bhujbal of the NCP and Gopichand Padalkar of the BJP has irked OBC community leaders who have targetted Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. Similarly, some of the leader who did not find place in the ministry expressed their anger and disappontment openly.
Speaking to reporters in Pune, OBC activist Laxman Hake, who had launched indefinite fasts to take on Maratha quota actiivst Manoj Jarange-Patil, said, “Why were key OBC leaders non included in the cabinet. Ajit Pawar should answer this question. At the same time, will Bhujbal be made the deputy chief minister for two and half years ?”
You have exhausted your monthly limit of free stories.
Read more stories for free with an Express account.
Hake said though the OBC community is happy Dhananjay Munde and Pankaja Munde have been included in the cabinet, Chhagan Bhujbal and Gopichand’s exclusion has hurt the community. “Bhujbal has been fighting for getting justice for the OBC community. He should have been given a place in the state cabinet. I feel the OBC community has been insulted. We had already declared that we are with Mahayuti. The whole OBC community voted in favour of Mahayuti. Still we do not know why Chhagan Bhujbal and Gopichand Padalkar were ignored.”
Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar, who is also an OBC leader, said, “Injustice has not just been done to Bhujbal but to entire OBC community.”
NCP (SP) leader Jitendra Awhad said Bhujbal has vast experience in parliamentary work. ”When he was in the Opposition, he alone used to create a stir in the house,” he said.
NCP spokesperson Amol Mitkari however said, “Bhujbal was not upset… Bhujbal is the soul of NCP… The soul cannot leave the body. If Bhujbal has not been given the ministerial berth, it means Ajit Pawar has thought something big for him.” Bhujbal on his part made no bones of the fact he was unhappy over his exclusion.
“I was rewarded for taking Manoj Jarange-Patil head-on with exclusion from the ministry,” Bhujbal, a senior NCP leader, said at a press conference in Nagpur on Monday.
Bhujbal said, “I fought on behalf of the OBC community. That’s why thw whole community came together and Mahayuti secured a huge success. Those who think the Mahayuti got success because of the OBC community, I want to express my gratitude to them,” he said.
Story continues below this ad
“I have been made a minister in the past and have been ignored as well. But I am not finished yet.” Bhujbal was a Minister in the Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti Government which completed its two and half year tenure.
Reacting to Bhujbal’s exclusion, Jarange-Patil said, “We have nothing to do with it…We don’t want to talk about anyone who has targeted our reservation.”
Senior BJP leader Sudhir Mungantiwar who also did not find a spot in the CM Devemdra Fadnavis Ministry, said, “First I was told that I will be made the minister. Then I was told that I will not be made the minister. I am waiting for my new responsbility. I was constantly in touch with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and state BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule. They never gave me an inkling that my name will not be there. They kept telling me that my name has been sent to Delhi. But my name was missing from the list. Since last evening, I’ve wondering what happened.”
Mungantiwar added, “I am not upset. I did not attend the assembly because now I am not a minister…”
Story continues below this ad
Reacting to Mungantiwar’s remarks, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “I have had long discussions with him… He will be given another responsbility in the party.”
Shiv Sena’s Vijay Shivtare was more scathing in his attack at being dropped.
I am not saddened by the fact that my name has been dropped. But the way it happened, being taken into confidence… it has 100 per cent not happened the way I expected it to. If they had given me the ministerial berth after two and half years, I was ready to take it. I am not angry at being denied the ministerial berth, but I am angry at the way I was treated,” he said.
Shivtare said ministerial post was not important for him. “What hurts me is where is Maharashtra heading… I think we are going back, we are going the Bihar way.”
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
