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Day after Maratha quota violence, police step up security at Ajit Pawar’s Baramati residence

According to the police, there was no bandh anywhere in the Pune district.

maratha protestBeed: Maratha reservation agitators vandalise the residence of NCP MLA Prakash Solanke in Beed, Maharashtra, Monday, Oct. 30, 2023. (PTI Photo)
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A day after Maratha quota agitators targeted properties of political leaders in Beed, Nanded, and other parts of Maharashtra, the Pune rural police said on Tuesday they have stepped up security at the residence of all VVIPs, including those of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and NCP chief Sharad Pawar in Baramati.

While speaking to The Indian Express, Ankit Goyal, Superintendent of Police, Pune Rural, said, “We have stepped security at the residence of political leaders and VVIPs”.

Goyal said, “Security has been beefed up at all places, be it at the residence of political leaders, party offices or highways in view of the prevailing situation”.

An NCP spokesperson said Ajit Pawar is in Mumbai and was resting after he was diagnosed with dengue.

The police said agitations are underway in different parts of the district but there has been no untoward incident until this afternoon. “No rasta roko or blockades have been held so far… Agitations are underway but no untoward incident has been reported,” said Goyal.

Goyal also denied that there was a bandh anywhere in the district.

Rajendra Kunjeer, coordinator of Maratha Kranti Morcha, said the agitations in Pune are being held peacefully.

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“On behalf of the Maratha Kranti Morcha, I have appealed to the community to hold their protests as per the guidelines issued by Manoj Jarange-Patil. And, therefore, we are holding hunger strikes and candle marches and not allowing politicians to be at our doorstep,” he said.

As protesters indulged in arson and vandalism on Monday, they set the houses of NCP MLAs Prakash Solunke and Sandeep Kshirsagar in the state’s Beed district on fire.

They also targeted a municipal council building, vandalised the office of a BJP MLA in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, set the saffron party’s Hingoli office on fire, and pelted stones at state-run buses as they blocked highways in other parts of the Marathwada region.

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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