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Sanjay Raut meets Rahul Gandhi, discusses Cong performance and proposes meet with Uddhav

Sources close to Raut said he was especially invited by Rahul as he was close to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and the only strong link of the Congress with Shiv Sena.

Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena, Rahul Gandhi, Maha Vikas Aghadi, MVA, Congress, Delhi, Maharashtra, Maharashtra government, Maharashtra news, Indian express, Indian express newsWhen Raut had met Rahul last month at an all-party meeting, they could not hold a one-on-one meeting. (File)

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut held an hour-long meeting with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Tuesday and discussed several issues, including the functioning of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in the state. Raut, who had last month invited Gandhi to visit Maharashtra and meet Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, extended the invitation again on Tuesday.

During the one-on-one meeting, Rahul sought feedback from Raut about the performance of the Congress in Maharashtra. “We had an hour-long meeting…It was one-to-one meeting where no other leader was present,” Raut told The Indian Express in the evening.

“There was not one issue on our agenda but several issues…Not only national issues, but we also had discussions on issues related to Maharashtra. The discussion revolved around the functioning of the government in the state as well as the performance of the Congress. Rahul is keen to strengthen the Congress in Maharashtra as well as across the country,” he said. Raut said he also discussed certain issues that could not be disclosed. “Rahul sought suggestions to strengthen the Congress in Maharashtra,” he added.

Sources close to Raut said he was especially invited by Rahul as he was close to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and the only strong link of the Congress with Shiv Sena.

The meeting assumes significance as the BJP has been repeatedly sending feelers to Shiv Sena for a possible reunion of the two parties. At the same time, at least two Sena leaders have openly spoken about “BJP being the natural ally of Shiv Sena”. One Sena leader, Pratap Sarnaik, said the party should join hands with BJP so that ED raids and other problems being faced by Sena leaders would ease.

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When Raut had met Rahul last month at an all-party meeting, they could not hold a one-on-one meeting.

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“Raut is a known supporter of Congress. He has been praising both Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra through the editorials in Saamna, and so Congress has lot of respect for him,” said a senior Congress leader.

 

 

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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