NCP leader Ankush Kakade, a close associate of Sharad Pawar for several decades, said people like Ravi Rana should be admitted to mental hospital in Yerawada.
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Sharad Pawar will remain with the INDIA bloc at the national level and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance in Maharashtra, asserted Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Sunday after Amravati MLA Ravi Rana claimed that the NCP chief would join hands with the BJP in the next 15-20 days.
”Whoever claims that our party chief Sharad Pawar will join hands with BJP does not warrant a response. Our party chief will remain with the INDIA bloc and Maha Vikas Aghadi. He is at the forefront of bringing all opposition parties together. The opposition is heavily banking on him to throw the BJP out of power. Our party chief will never follow an ideology which is dangerous for the nation. He is making all efforts so that the BJP is ousted from power in 2024 elections,” Mahesh Tapase, spokesperson of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, told The Indian Express.
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On Saturday, Rana, an independent MLA supporting the BJP, said, ”In state (Maharashtra) and at the Centre, a strong BJP government will emerge with the participation of Sharad Pawar,” said Rana.
Rana said during the Ganesh Festival, he visited several mandals. ”I prayed before the Lord that Sharad Pawar should join hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the sake of the country’s progress. A miracle is going to happen in the next 15-20 days. I am confident soon there will be a strong BJP government in Maharashtra and Delhi with support from Sharad Pawar,” Rana said.
Shiv Sena (UBT), part of the MVA, rubbished Rana’s claim. ”Did Ravi Rana get permission from Devendra Fadnavis before making such a statement? If this is true, then it is clear that the BJP is indulging in breaking parties only for power,” said Sena (UBT) spokesperson Aher.
The state Congress also criticised Rana’s claim. ”These are people paid by the BJP to make such statements. The formation of the INDIA bloc shakes the BJP. It cannot comprehend how to tackle the strong force called the INDIA bloc. Therefore, it is trying to cause disturbance in the INDIA bloc through such baseless and meaningless statements. Sharad Pawar has a strong ideology. He has always backed people from different strata of society, unlike the BJP, which has an ideology of dividing people. Sharad Pawar follows the ideology, principles and values cherished by Mahatma Gandhi. He will never toe the (Nathuram) Godse line, which belongs to the BJP,” said Congress spokesperson Gopal Tiwari.
Sena MP Sanjay Raut recently, in his column ‘Rokthok’ in Sena mouthpiece Saamana, discounted the possibility of Pawar joining hands with Modi. ”Sharad Pawar will never support regressive mentalities. He considers the BJP a regressive force which seeks to divide people in the name of religion. Sharad Pawar will never make the mistake of joining hands with people who believe in dictatorship and not in democracy,” he said.
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NCP leader Ankush Kakade, a close associate of Sharad Pawar for several decades, said, ”Ravi Rana has lost his balance. He needs treatment at a mental hospital in Yerawada. The NCP will bear all his expenditure on mental treatment.”
Kakade urged the media not to highlight such news. ”Such people make ridiculous claims. They talk about brainless things. I request the media not to highlight such news and downgrade yourself,” 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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