Pune News Highlights: Dy CM Fadnavis says will introspect Kasba bypoll loss; Ashwini Jagtap becomes first woman MLA from Chinchwad

Two engineering graduates, two Aadhaar enrolment centre employees and a private firm worker ganged together through a Telegram group and duped a Pune-based fintech startup after procuring credit cards using names and PAN details of celebrities like M S Dhoni, Abhishek Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit, the Delhi Police said on Friday. (PTI)

Newly-elected Congress MLA from Kasba Peth Ravindra Dhangekar on Friday met ailing Pune Lok Sabha MP Girish Bapat of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Dhangekar wrested the BJP stronghold by defeating Hemant Rasane by 10,950 votes in the February 26 bypolls, results of which were declared on Thursday. (PTI) 

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde Friday lashed out at Leader of Opposition Ajit Pawar in the Assembly for the latter’s statement that the “common man defeated Eknath Shinde” after the Congress’s victory in the bypoll to Kasba constituency in Pune on Thursday. Shinde was delivering the government’s resolution on Governor Ramesh Bais’s joint address to the state legislature. Read more

Lieutenant General Narendra Kotwal assumed the appointment of Director and Commandant of the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) in Pune on Friday, March 3.

Paediatric cancers have a very good chance of cure and an early referral can make a significant difference for the child, said Dr Neelesh Reddy, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Manipal Hospital, Yeshwanthpur, Bengaluru.

The loss of the Kasba Assembly seat, a party bastion, will put pressure on five of the eight BJP legislators in Pune city to retain their seats in the 2024 Assembly elections.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde mocked the Maha Vikas Aghadi over its excitement following the victory of an MVA-backed candidate in Kasba Peth bye-election, saying the BJP has historically swept state and general elections after a few setbacks in bypolls.

Speaking in the legislative assembly during the debate on the governor's address to the joint sitting of both Houses, Shinde said, “Now in the next elections, I am also with the BJP. We are the Shiv Sena that contested the last election in alliance with the BJP while you all had contested the election separately.”  (PTI) 

Two wards of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), namely Ward No.15 and Ward No.29, have been traditional strongholds of the BJP. Leads gained by BJP candidates in these two wards have been instrumental in helping the party retain its hold over the Kasba Assembly seat in the last 28 years.

When the results came out on Thursday, it became clear that these two wards had bucked the trend this time around, and thus sealed Rasane’s fate.

In reality, the lead that Rasane got from Ward No.15 was a mere 7,256 votes, which was not enough to tide over the advantage that his rival and eventual winner, Congress’s Ravindra Dhangekar, enjoyed in the other areas. The story was no different in Ward No.29 comprising Navi Peth and part of Dutta Wadi area, another BJP stronghold due to the popularity of its corporator Dheeraj Ghate. 

The Pune city police have arrested two farmers in Maharashtra for allegedly growing the banned opium poppies in their farms in the Holkarwadi area, officials said Thursday.

In a unique presentation, Shruti Madhudeep is to enact a play called Pach Futacha Bachchan, meaning ‘five-foot Bachchan’ at Yashwantrao Chavan Natyagriha, Kothrud.