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Maharashtra minister under fire for objectionable remarks on Hema Malini

Water Supply and Sanitation Minister Gulabrao Patil was addressing an election rally at Bodwad Nagar panchayat. The Shiv Sena leader made the comments in an apparent taunt to his political adversary Eknath Khadse of the NCP.

Objecting to Patil's comment, the state BJP said it will file a police complaint against him for making "insulting and undignified remarks". (Instagram/Gulabrao Patil/File)

Shiv Sena leader Gulabrao Patil, who is the Cabinet Minister for Water Supply and Sanitation in the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, on Sunday came under fire from the Opposition BJP as well as ally NCP after making objectionable remarks on popular actor and BJP leader Hema Malini. State BJP said it will file a police complaint against the minister for making “insulting and undignified remarks” while the Maharashtra State Women’s Commission said he should apologise or face legal action.

Addressing an election rally for Bodwad Nagar Panchayat in Jalgaon district, Patil, taunting his political adversary, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Eknath Khadse, said, “Those who have served as MLA for 30 years should visit my Dharangaon constituency. They should first hand see the development. If you don’t find the roads in Dharangaon like the cheeks of Hema Malini, I will resign ….”

In response, Khadse said, “I don’t want to comment about his remarks on the actor. I don’t know why he remembered Hema Malini. Each one speaks as per his capability…But I want to tell Patil that I have not lost even a single election in last 30 years. If people are electing me repeatedly, it means I have worked for them.”

BJP’s Pravin Darekar, who is the Opposition leader in the State Legislative Council, said, “An offence should be launched against Patil for denigrating womenfolk….I want to see what action the MVA government takes against the minister.”

BJP’s women wing president Uma Khapre told The Indian Express, “This is a highly objectionable and insulting remark. He has tried to lower the dignity of women. Women are becoming soft targets of politicians. We will certainly file a police complaint against the minister.”

When contacted, State Women’s Commission chairperson Rupali Chakankar, who is also the state NCP women’s wing chief, said, “As a people’s representative, Patil’s statement is highly deplorable and demeaning of the womenfolk. By making such a comparison, he has only highlighted his own values and culture…If he does not apologise, we will have to take legal action against him.”

Darekar said across the state, the three constituents of the MVA are fighting against each other and that Jalgaon is no exception. “As they are fighting among themselves, the BJP is gaining everywhere,” 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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