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This is an archive article published on June 20, 2021

BJP will consider joining hands with Sena if Uddhav thinks likewise: Chandrakant Patil

Chandrakant Patil also said that Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik has only proposed what BJP has been saying for 18 months now.

Chandrakant PatilMaharashtra BJP president Chandrakant Patil (file photo)

After a letter, purportedly written by Shiv Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik, calling for an alliance with the BJP went viral on Sunday, state BJP president Chandrakant Patil said the party leadership will “give it a thought” if Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray considered it.

“Pratap Sarnaik is a Shiv Sena leader and MLA. He has written a letter to his party chief, calling for an alliance with the BJP, which will think about it if Uddhav Thackeray also thinks on the same line,” said Patil after a function in Pune.

Patil said if they (the BJP) said anything positive (about the alliance), Saamana ridiculed them. “If we say anything positive, then Saamana ridicules us, saying we are desperate for power,” he added.

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Patil also said in his letter, Sarnaik had said what the BJP had been saying for 18 months. “This is an unscientific alliance (Sena, Congress and NCP). Balasaheb Thackeray fought Congress and NCP all his life and now Sena has struck an alliance with the same parties,” he said.

In his letter to Thackeray, Sarnaik has urged him to join hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The letter states that Congress and NCP are trying to weaken the Sena. It also states that if Sena teams up with the BJP, trouble for Sena leaders like Anil Parab Ravindra Waykar will ease. The letter states that despite a Sena chief minister at the helm, Congress and NCP MLAs get priority for their works.

Opposition leader in the state council Pravin Darekar said, “Not just Sarnaik, there are several Sena leaders upset with the three-party alliance. In private, they speak their heart. This is the first letter… there will be many more from disgruntled Sena leaders.”

Another BJP leader Kirit Somaiya, however, said, “Sarnaik fears going to jail and that is why he has written the letter. He has committed corruption and he will soon go to jail.”

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Shiv Sena chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut said, “The important part of the letter is that it highlights the fact that leaders of the Maha Vikas Aghadi are being unnecessarily harrased… This will have to be studied.”

State Congress chief Nana Patole said, “Sarnaik’s letter is an internal matter of the Shiv Sena, and the Congress does not comment on the internal matters of other parties.”

He, however, said the Congress will contest local civic body polls on its own, but will support the Uddhav Thackeray-led government for five years.

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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