The Shiv Sena said Rahul had pulled out Congress from the ashes. Express Photo by Prem Nath Pandey
ONCE again displaying its new-found affection for the new Congress president and his party, the Shiv Sena Sunday said Rahul Gandhi might have failed to secure victory for his party in the Gujarat assembly elections but he ensured that his party emerged “victorious”. The Maharashtra Congress welcomed the Sena’s changed stand, saying people, parties and the opposition had realised the “positive leadership” of Rahul Gandhi.
“Rahul Gandhi who was taunted as Pappu has shattered the notion that victory only means power and power can be bought…” said Sanjay Raut, executive editor of Sena mouthpiece Saamana. In his special column in the paper’s Sunday supplement, Raut said, “The Gujarat election was between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. He made the BJP and the PM sweat it out…” Raut said though the entire focus of BJP campaigning was on Rahul Gandhi, the Congress president gave a befitting reply to those who dreamt of a “Congress-mukt Bharat”.
The Shiv Sena said Rahul had pulled out Congress from the ashes. “In Uttar Pradesh, Congress tied up with Samajwadi Party but failed to achieve success. Till now he has remained unsuccessful…A machinery was working overtime to taunt him as an idiot and unsuccessful…However, Gujarat has broken his series of unsuccessful ventures. He campaigned well, gave patient speeches, endured criticism and defamation and has emerged a strong leader,” he said.
“Rahul Gandhi kept saying he respected Prime Minister’s post and he is at odds with ‘egoist’ Modi…I want to fight this war with patience and decently,” Raut said in the write-up.
He said BJP president Amit Shah had vowed to win 350 Lok Sabha seats. “He had also said if BJP won less than 150 seats, victory celebrations should not be held. But BJP ended up securing less than 100, which proves that Rahul Gandhi remains a challenge for 2019 elections,” said Raut.
The Sena leader said he was not a Congress supporter. “But if a strong opposition was ready to stand behind Rahul, we welcome it,” he said. After the Gujarat elections, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had sung paeans to Rahul Gandhi. Saamana had called him a “baazigar” and said the Gujarat model was trembling.
Reacting to Sena’s changed stand, Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said, “We welcome the Sena’s reaction. It is clear that people, parties and the opposition in the country have realised the kind of leadership that Rahul Gandhi is providing. As against the divisive politics practised by the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi believed in inclusive politics and taking each and every citizen of this country along. While Rahul Gandhi believed in positive leadership, Modi was spreading negativity.”
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For months now, especially after its relations with the state BJP soured drastically, the Shiv Sena has been heaping praise on Congress and Rahul Gandhi. “For years, the Sena had been vitriolic on its attack on the Congress. But now it is clear that the Shiv Sena does not find Congress untouchable. Till the national leadership clear the air about Congress relations with the Sena, we will have to keep quiet,” said a Congress leader.
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.
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The Shiv Sena said Rahul had pulled out Congress from the ashes. Express Photo by Prem Nath Pandey
