MVA to pull out all the stops; Uddhav, Ajit Pawar, Patole to hold joint rally for PMC, PCMC polls
Ahead of civic elections in Maharashtra, the Maha Vikas Aghadi is set to hold joint rallies across the state. Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena (UBT) is mulling an invitation to VBA chief Prakash Ambedkar.
The decision to hold the joint rallies was taken at a meeting of MVA leaders in Mumbai on Wednesday. (File photo)
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The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has decided to hold joint rallies of its top leaders for the upcoming civic elections across the state, including the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) polls, hoping to put up a united front against the BJP-Shinde alliance.
The MVA will also take a call on inviting Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar to the rallies.
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The first such rally will be held on April 2 in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (earlier Aurangabad) and will be addressed by Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, NCP leader Ajit Pawar, state Congress chief Nana Patole and senior Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat. Subsequent rallies will be held in Nagpur on April 16, Mumbai on May 1, Pune on May 14, Kolhapur on 28 and Nashik on June 3.
The decision to hold the joint rallies was taken at a meeting of MVA leaders in Mumbai on Wednesday. Uddhav presided over the meeting, which was held on Vidhan Bhavan premises. Apart from Ajit Pawar and Nana Patole, leaders like Ambadas Danve, Opposition leader of the state Legislative Council, Aaditya Thackeray, Chhagan Bhujbal, Satej Patil, Sunil Kedar and Dhananjay Munde were also present.
“In Kasba Peth elections, our leaders held joint rallies which saw large gatherings. Karyakartas (workers) of all three parties and other alliance partners were present in full strength. As a result, a strong message went among the voters which led to the victory of our candidate. We want to implement a similar experiment during the civic polls as well,” Sanjay Raut, spokesperson for the Shiv Sena (UBT), told The Indian Express.
Raut said Uddhav will also campaign. In the recent Kasba and Chinchwad bypolls, Uddhav could not campaign as his movement has been restricted due to a medical condition. “For the rallies to be held for upcoming civic polls, our party chief will be in action. His presence will energise the rank and file of our party as well as enthuse the workers of our alliance partners,” Raut said.
A Congress leader said that if Uddhav campaigns in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad alongside MVA leaders, it will be the first such instance. “Uddhav Thackeray, Congress and NCP leaders have never come on a common platform in Pune or Pimpri-Chinchwad,” the leader said.
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Asked whether VBA chief Prakash Ambedkar will be invited, Raut said, “At yesterday’s meeting, this issue was not discussed. Today, there is likely to be another meeting where we will discuss whether Prakash Ambedkar should be invited or not,” he said. The VBA has struck an alliance with Shiv Sena (UBT) for the Mumbai civic polls.
State Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe said the issue of inviting Ambedkar was not discussed. “Even otherwise, the MVA has not struck an alliance with VBA. The Shiv Sena has an alliance with VBA. It was for the Sena to take the call,” he said.
Londhe said the joint rallies of top leaders of MVA will help effectively unite the workers and leaders of the MVA. “Instead of individual rallies of a particular leader belonging to one party, we have decided to hold joint rallies where all the leaders and workers of our alliance partners will be present. It will show the might of the MVA. After the recent Kasba experiment, we have decided to jointly display our armour to decimate the BJP and Shinde Sena which is going all out to wreck Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena and the Congress,” he said.
Londhe said the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporations are high on their agenda. “We won Kasba after 28 years. It shows the voters are inclined towards us. The air is blowing in favour of MVA in PMC limits. Similarly, in Chinchwad too, we would have won had the rebel candidate withdrawn from the race. Anyway, the combined votes polled by our official candidate and the rebel candidate are much more than that polled by the BJP candidate. This is enough reason for BJP to worry…We are confident of capturing both the PMC and PCMC civic bodies,” 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.
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