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Maharashtra: Sena hits back at Raut, says he wanted to topple Uddhav

After Raut claims Eknath Shinde tried to join Congress

Sanjay RautShiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut (File)

SHIV Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Saturday put the Shiv Sena in a corner when he claimed its president Eknath Shinde had tried to join the Congress when Prithviraj Chavan was the chief minister 10 years ago. The Sena hit back at Raut, saying he was trying to take over the reins of the party.

Eknath Shinde has nothing to with saffron flag… BJP has forced him to tom tom about the saffron agenda. In fact, Eknath Shinde had tried to join the Congress. He had met one of the top Congress leaders Ahmad Patel in Delhi during early morning hours,” Raut said on Saturday. ”You should ask former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan about it,” he said.

Raut said had Ahmad Patel still been alive, he would have substantiated his claim.

When The Indian Express sought to find out from Raut as to who the other leaders accompanying Shinde were, he said, “I will soon disclose it, may be at tomorrow’s press conference in Mumbai.”

When asked about the specific day when Shinde met Patel to seek entry into Congress, Raut said, “I will disclose this soon too.” Ten years ago, Shinde was part of the undivided Shiv Sena.

When contacted, Prithviraj Chavan refused to comment whether Shinde had tried to join the Congress. Despite repeatedly asking if what Raut said was true or false, Chavan refused to comment.

Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe said, “What Raut had said belongs to a decade back. I was new at that time… I will talk discuss it with Prithviraj Chavan.”

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Shinde has attacked the Congress since the time he left MVA and joined hands with BJP to form the Mahayuti Congress. A Congress leader said, “Shinde has been repeating lines given to him by the BJP to attack the Congress. And the same Shinde was once desperate to join the Congress.”

The Eknath Shinde led Shiv Sena did not deny that the party chief had made an attempt to join the Congress in the past. Instead, it attacked Raut, saying he wanted to take over the reins of the undivided Shiv Sena by sidelining Uddhav Thackeray.

Sena spokesperson Sanjay Shirsat alleged that ”it was Raut who was trying to become the party president in the undivided Shiv Sena by removing Uddhav Thackeray. Raut used to tell us to form a separate group to carry out his plan”.

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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  • Eknath Shinde Maharashtra Congress Prithviraj Chauhan Sanjay Raut Uddhav Thackeray
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