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This is an archive article published on April 24, 2024

Vishwajeet Kadam shuns campaigning as Shiv Sena (UBT) gets its way in Sangli, Congress to hold urgent meet

Vishwajeet Kadam wanted to field Congress's Vishal Patil in Sangli in Lok Sabha elections 2024 but the party has let Chandrahar Patil of Uddhav Sena contest from the seat.

MLA Vishwajeet Kadam, maharashtra, lok sabha elections, indian expressMLA Vishwajeet Kadam. (File)

The Maharashtra Congress is set to hold an urgent meeting in Sangli to pacify MLA Vishwajeet Kadam and other party workers. Kadam has been staying away from campaigning for the Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Chandrahar Patil in Sangli, which goes to poll in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections on May 7.

”Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole, senior party leader Balasaheb Thorat and other leaders will meet with party workers tomorrow (Thursday) in Sangli. After that, I will decide on campaigning,” Kadam told The Indian Express on Wednesday.

Kadam has been at loggerheads with the party because it did not field his nominee, Vishal Patil of the Congress, and let Chandrahar Patil contest from the seat as part of the seat-sharing agreement within the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance.

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After Kadam failed to get his candidacy, Vishal Patil, grandson of former Maharashtra chief minister Vasantdada Patil, filed his nomination papers as an Independent. Monday was the last day for withdrawing candidacy for Sangli and Patil refused to do so despite the request from the Congress leadership.

As a result, three candidates are now in the fray in Sangli: Sitting MP Sanjaykaka Patil of the BJP, Chandrahar Patil of Shiv Sena (UBT), and Vishal Patil.

Vikram Sawant, a Congress MLA, acknowledged that Vishal Patil was receiving a positive response from the public. “However, we are adhering to the alliance principles and campaigning for the MVA candidate,” Sawant said.

Shiv Sena (UBT) has demanded that the Congress take action against Vishal Patil, and the Congress has responded by saying that it will expel him.

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However, it has emerged that the party will make one last-ditch effort to convince the rank and file to campaign for Chandrahar Patil. ”Let us wait for one more day,” Kadam 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.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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