This is an archive article published on April 12, 2023
Sharad Pawar ‘upset’ with MVA leaders, asks them to speak in one voice
NCP chief Sharad Pawar met Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday. Recently, MVA leaders have been at loggerheads over issues related to the Adani Group and Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar.
Sharad Pawar also indicated that he might attend one of the several MVA rallies being held statewide. (PTI)
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Sharad Pawar ‘upset’ with MVA leaders, asks them to speak in one voice
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Upset with Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders for publicly voicing their contradictory views, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has told Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray to ensure that leaders of all three key players of the alliance speak in one voice before the masses.
Pawar said this at a meeting he held with Thackeray at his residence, Silver Oak, in Mumbai on Tuesday evening. Pawar also indicated that he might attend one of the several MVA rallies being held statewide.
“The NCP chief said all the three parties might have their own agenda and their own plans and policies, but when they go before the people as MVA leaders, they need to speak in one voice and one language. If we place forth our differing views before the people, they will get confused and it will be bad publicity for the MVA,” Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut told The Indian Express.
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Raut said the Sena chief agreed with Pawar’s views and expressed the need to hold discussions about not airing their views publicly, creating confusion and giving the BJP a handle to slam them. “We also hold similar views like those of the NCP chief,” Raut said.
In recent times, the MVA parties have been at loggerheads over various issues like the demand for a probe into the alleged malpractices by the Adani Group and on Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar. On the Adani issue, Pawar had opposed a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe while Congress favoured a JPC. On the Savarkar issue, the Sena and NCP demanded a Bharat Ratna for him, while the Congress accused the Hindutva ideologue of working in the interest of the British after apologising and getting himself released from jail.
On Tuesday, when Pawar and Uddhav met, NCP’s Supriya Sule and Raut himself were present. They held a discussion for one-and-a-half hours. “To ensure coordination between MVA parties, the NCP chief and Uddhav Thackeray have always communicated with each other. The meeting was held in this backdrop,” Raut said.
Raut said the two leaders also discussed several issues including the demand for a JPC probe on the Adani issue, the uproar created by the ruling BJP in Parliament over Rahul Gandhi’s remarks in London, PM Narendra Modi’s degree and the damage caused by unseasonal rain in Maharashtra. They also discussed Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s visit to Ayodhya instead of taking steps to alleviate farmers’ woes, Raut said.
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Raut added that Pawar is likely to attend one of the rallies being organised by the MVA across the state ahead of the elections. “The very first meeting of MVA in Aurangabad drew a huge response. On April 16, there will be a second meeting in Nagpur. On May 1, NCP chief Sharad Pawar is expected to address an MVA rally in Pune,” 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.
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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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