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Shiv Sena or BJP? Pimpri NCP MLA Anna Bansode says ‘none’ day after CM visits his office

While heading for Nigdi from Thergaon, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde stopped for a while at the office of the NCP MLA in Chinchwad area.

shinde, chinchwad, shiv sena, bjpOn Friday, the Chief Minister was in Pimpri-Chinchwad to attend the ‘Government at your doorstep’ initiative in Thergaon and to inaugurate the statue of Mahatma Basveshwar in Nigdi.
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A day after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde visited his office in Chinchwad, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA Anna Bansode denied that he is headed towards Shiv Sena or the BJP.

“No, I am not leaving NCP and joining Shiv Sena or the BJP. There is no truth in these speculations,” Bansode told The Indian Express Saturday.

On Friday, the Chief Minister was in Pimpri-Chinchwad to attend the ‘Government at your doorstep’ initiative in Thergaon and to inaugurate the statue of Mahatma Basveshwar in Nigdi. While heading for Nigdi from Thergaon, the Chief Minister stopped for a while at the office of the NCP MLA in Chinchwad area. Speaking to reporters after meeting Bansode, the Chief Minister said, “There is no politics involved in our meeting. It was just a courtesy call.”

Bansode said he had received a call from the Chief Minister’s Office that he would be visiting him while on a visit to Pimpri-Chinchwad. Asked whether the Chief Minister had given him an offer to join the party, Bansode said, “No, there was no such discussion during the short meeting.”

Shiv Sena MP Shrirang Barne too denied that the party is trying to rope in Bansode. “No, we are not pursuing the NCP MLA and have not made him any offer to join our party,” Barne said.

For sometime now, speculations have been doing the rounds that Bansode would join either the BJP or the Shiv Sena. NCP sources said though Bansode is close to party leader Ajit Pawar, there is widespread resentment against him in the party.

“Many corporators are upset with Bansode’s style of functioning. They don’t want him to be fielded again from the Pimpri reserved constituency. Hardly any development work has been carried out in the constituency during the last four years,” an NCP leader said.

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Bansode was elected from Pimpri in the 2017 election. When Ajit Pawar had taken oath along with Devendra Fadnavis in November 2019, Bansode was among the few MLAs who were with him at that time.

Since then, Bansode has been known to be close to Pawar. The two assembly constituencies of Bhosari and Chinchwad which flank the Pimpri seat have seen rapid development. However, NCP leaders said the Pimpri seat has been limping when it comes to development which has come as a rude shock to the voters.

NCP Pimpri-Chinchwad president Ajit Gavahane said, “There is no need to give a political angle to the meeting between the CM and the MLA. The CM said he would visit Bansode’s office as it was on the way to Nigdi and kept his word.”

Gavahane also denied that some NCP leaders were upset with Bansode for not pushing the development of Pimpri constituency. “I don’t think there is any resentment against Bansode. If there is, then I will take up the matter with our leader Ajit Pawar,” he said.

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BJP Pimpri-Chinchwad president Mahesh Landge said, “I was present when the Chief Minister met Bansode. But I am not aware what transpired between the two.” Asked whether the BJP has made Bansode an offer to join the party, Landge said, “I don’t think we have made any offer to him. Such decisions are taken at a higher level.”

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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