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This is an archive article published on April 19, 2016

Under fire for clicking selfies in Latur, Pankaja Munde skips cabinet meeting

“Since yesterday night, she was suffering from a severe headache because of being in the blazing sun for a long time while reviewing drought-related work in Latur,” an aide said.

Pankaja Munde, selfies, Latur, Latur Pankaja Munde, Pankaja Munde selfies, Latur selfies, latur news, india news, maharashtra, maharashtra news “On Sunday, during my visit to Sai barrage on Manjara river, I was happy really to see water in a trench. So I clicked some photos of that trench with water and recorded work being carried out, ” Pankaja Munde said.

Under fire for clicking selfies while reviewing drought-related work in parched Latur district, Maharashtra Revenue Minister Pankaja Munde Monday skipped a cabinet meeting, citing health issues.

“Since yesterday night, she was suffering from a severe headache because of being in the blazing sun for a long time while reviewing drought-related work in Latur,” an aide said. “This morning, she was feeling uneasy and went for a routine check-up, so she had to miss the 11 am state cabinet meeting.”

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Both the Congress and ally Shiv Sena attacked Munde, who is also the Water Conservation Minister. “Minister Munde’s act highlights the ongoing drought tourism exercise of the Fadnavis government. Just a few days ago, senior minister Eknath Khadse got a helipad by using 10,000 litres of drinking water,” State Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said.

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The Shiv Sena said Munde’s actions were unfortunate. “This was a serious tour. Such selfies could have been avoided or it just dilutes the impact of a drought tour. It is mainly the women who have to walk for miles to fetch drinking water and here a woman minister happily clicks selfies,” Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande told PTI.

Munde, however, hit back at detractors and, in an official statement, wrote: “During my Latur tour, I chaired many review meetings for drought relief measures being undertaken. We had tried to dig deep in search of water but without any success. On Sunday, during my visit to Sai barrage on Manjara river, I was happy really to see water in a trench. So I clicked some photos of that trench with water and recorded work being carried out (normally I don’t do this). I was really happy to see water in such dry plans like oasis in desert. This is not a photo of any event or function. But some people twisted it. I was aghast to read when a few mentioned that my make-up got ruined. I was just speechless.”

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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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