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This is an archive article published on January 11, 2024

Saamana slams Narwekar for breaching tenets of democracy

Speaker Narwekar ruled that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's party was the ''real Shiv Sena''.

Rahul NarwekarRahul Narwekar on Wednesday gave his verdict on 34 petitions, filed by the two rival Shiv Sena factions against each other, seeking the disqualification of 54 MLAs in total arising out of the party’s 2022 split. (File)

A DAY after Maharashtra Assembly Speaker ruled that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s party was the ”real Shiv Sena” and dismissed either faction’s disqualification petition, Sena (UBT) mouthpiece Saamana said the verdict is a blot on the face of democracy.

”Rahul Narwekar’s verdict is a blot on the face of democracy, and the world is watching. He had an opportunity to create history… But he trampled upon the Constitution while granting legitimacy to a group of thieves. Maharashtra will never forgive such people,” the paper said in its editorial today. MP Sanjay Raut is the editor of the paper.

”The verdict in favour of the traitors was pre-decided. Nothing to be shocked about. The lengthy verdict read out by Rahul Narwekar was written by his masters in Delhi,” the paper said.

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The editorial said that first the Election Commission favoured Shinde faction, granting it ownership of Sena. ”When two factions are formed in a legislature party, its ownership cannot be decided in favour of one. But the ECI decided ownership in favour of the breakaway faction. And now, the Assembly Speaker has also toed the same line. Balasaheb Thackeray formed the Sena but the Assembly Speaker is deciding whom it belongs to,” the paper said.

The paper said it was appalling that someone like Narwekar was deciding the ownership of a self-respecting party like Shiv Sena. ”He jumps from one party to another four times in five years, and Delhi then decides to confer on him a constitutional post. And now he gets to decide whom Sena belongs to. It is shocking,” the paper said.

The paper said the party (BJP) which is known for dictatorship appoints an Assembly Speaker who decides that Sena is bereft of democracy, and that the Sena pramukh has no right to expel traitors from its fold? ”This is the biggest mockery of Parliamentary democracy,” the paper said.

Sena (UBT) did not expect a good and lawful judgement from Narwekar, the paper said. ”By handing over Balasaheb Thackeray’s Sena to a dishonest group, he has betrayed Maharashtra,” it 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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