Premium
This is an archive article published on September 22, 2019

Maharashtra: BJP claims alliance will win 220 seats, Cong-NCP says ‘change imminent’

“We will not only win 220 seats but it should not come as a surprise if we go way beyond the 220 mark,” state BJP Minister Vinod Tawde told mediapersons.

Maharashtra: BJP claims alliance will win 220 seats, Cong-NCP says ‘change imminent’ Vinod Tawde claimed that Congress-NCP alliance will “surrender” in this election, as the government has the backing of 8.94 crore voters. (Source: File)

MOMENTS AFTER the Election Commission (EC) of India announced poll dates for Maharashtra, the state BJP claimed on Saturday that it will form the government along with ally Shiv Sena by bagging more than 220 seats.

The Congress-NCP combine, meanwhile, claimed that “change was imminent” given the “misrule” prevailing in the state. “We will not only win 220 seats but it should not come as a surprise if we go way beyond the 220 mark,” state BJP Minister Vinod Tawde told mediapersons.

He claimed that Congress-NCP alliance will “surrender” in this election, as the government has the backing of 8.94 crore voters.

Story continues below this ad

In 2014 elections, while the BJP had won 122 seats, Sena had bagged 62 seats.

Echoing Tawde, BJP state president Chandrakant Patil said: “The chief minister’s Mahajanadesh Yatra had drawn tremendous response. It is an indicator of the mood of the voters. They are fully in our favour.”

On speculations about BJP’s alliance with Sena, Patil said: “The alliance will certainly happen and it will be announced in the next two days… Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray are looking into the seat-sharing formula.”

Patil said issues like the scrapping of Article 370 and triple talaq will not be raised during campaigning.

Story continues below this ad

“We will highlight our achievements in the last five years and ask voters to compare the same with the 15-year rule of the Congress-NCP… We want to take up the issue of tackling drought on war footing. This will be one of the major issues that we will take up,” he added.

Congress state president Balasaheb Thorat, meanwhile, maintained that the voters are frustrated with the BJP-Sena “misrule”.

“Be it farmers, traders, shopkeepers, industrialists or the common man, all are angry with the state government, which has failed to solve their problems. The Congress-NCP combine has in the last five years agitated several times against the pathetic response of the government to people’s issues. We will highlight the fact that the BJP-Sena government has not done anything tangible for the residents,” he said.

NCP state spokesperson Nawab Malik said, “In the last six months, industrial slowdown has worsened, unemployment continues to be on the rise and farmers are struggling. The people are in the mood for a change.”

Story continues below this ad

“During the Lok Sabha elections, Sena and BJP had received 50 per cent of the votes, taking advantage of division of votes. People have realised this and will not allow division of votes this time,” he added.

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

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram

Latest Comment
Post Comment
Read Comments
Advertisement
Advertisement
Loading Taboola...
Advertisement