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This is an archive article published on March 11, 2019

Elgar convenor Kolse-Patil in poll fray from Aurangabad

A retired judge, B G Kolse-Patil says his primary objective is to raise his voice and put up a strong fight against the communal forces “that are ruling the country”.

BG Kolse-Patil, elgaar parishad, lok sabha elections dates, lok sabha elections 2019 dates, Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat, Aurangabad polls date, maharashtra elections dates, pune elections dates Kolse-Patil is seeking support of all parties, “except BJP, Sena”

A retired Bombay High Court judge, known to be a fierce critic of right-wing politics, has stirred the electoral pot in Aurangabad. At 77, B G Kolse-Patil has decided to contest from Aurangabad Lok Sabha constituency on a Janata Dal(S) seat and is seeking the support of all parties, “except the BJP and Shiv Sena”.

Kolse-Patil, who claims that he along with retired SC judge P B Sawant were at the forefront of organising the controversial Elgaar Parishad in Pune in December 2017, but “police could not do anything” against him, says his primary objective is to raise his voice and put up a strong fight against the communal forces “that are ruling the country”.

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“Not only are they trying to saffronise our democratic institutions, but their agenda is to destroy them… I want to stop this,” he says, adding that he wants to “put an end to the Gujarat experiment by the Modi-Shah team”.

Fresh from a recent speech at Harvard and rolling up his sleeves for the electoral battle, Kolse-Patil says he has a special attachment for Aurangabad where he has worked since 1971-72. “I was a judge of the Aurangabad bench and led the agitation for setting up the Aurangabad bench of the high court,” he says.

Inspired by the call of Prakash Ambedkar, who heads the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi in Maharashtra, the retired judge says he will not limit himself to Aurangabad contituency. “I will campaign against communal forces across the country,” says Kolse-Patil, who was a strong voice for the Maratha community during their agitation for reservation.

Will he support parties such as the Congress and NCP, and AAP, SP, BSP, Trinamool Congress? “Why not? If they call me for campaigning, I will surely go,” he says, adding that he was looking forward to sharing the stage with NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi in Aurangabad.

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Stating that all secular parties will have to come together, the retired judge says, “Since our agenda is common — to defeat communal forces — I hope all secular parties will join hands. I will do everything possible to bring them together,” he says.

The Aurangabad seat has been held by the Shiv Sena for four terms, with sitting MP Chandrakant Khaire winning it with comfortable margins.

While NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said they would extend support to Kolse-Patil only if JD(S) leader Deve Gowda holds talks with Congress and NCP leaders on joining the Opposition alliance, Kolse-Patil claimed Gowda had already spoken to the leaders and told them that the Aurangabad seat should be allotted to the party.

Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said the party’s central leadership would take a decision.

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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