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This is an archive article published on May 14, 2018

In Maharashtra, Congress candidate ‘wins’ with BJP and Shiv Sena support

Congress leaders denied that they had requested the BJP and Shiv Sena to support Vishwajeet Kadam. "Kadam seems to have managed it on his own because of his father's equations with the BJP and Sena," a Congress leader said.

Maharashtra, Palus-Kadegaon polls, Vishwajeet Kadam, Congress candidate, BJP, Shiv Sena, Maharashtra news, Indian Express news Vishwajeet Kadam, son of Patangrao Kadam, is the lone candidate in fray in Palus-Kadegaon constituency, polling for which had been scheduled on May 28.

IN a first in Maharashtra politics, a Congress candidate ‘won’ a state Assembly election with the support from arch rivals, BJP and the Shiv Sena. Vishwajeet Kadam, son of Patangrao Kadam, is the lone candidate in fray in Palus-Kadegaon constituency, polling for which had been scheduled on May 28.

On the last day of withdrawal of nominations, a BJP candidate today opted out of the fray. Earlier, the Shiv Sena and NCP had extended their support, choosing not to field their candidates. There were 7 independent candidates who too withdrew from the fray on Monday. The State Election Commission will announce Kadam’s unopposed victory after getting a report from the officials in Sangli.

Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said only a formality of announcement of Kadam’s victory remained. “The BJP candidate today withdrew from the race and so did the independents. Only Kadam now remains in the fray,” he said. Sawant said it is probably the first time that a Congress candidate has won with support from BJP and the Sena. “I don’t remember any such earlier occasion. But this seems to be first one in years,” he said.

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Congress leaders denied that they had requested the BJP and Shiv Sena to support Kadam. “Kadam seems to have managed it on his own because of his father’s equations with the BJP and Sena,” a Congress leader said.

The election was necessitated following the death of former minister and veteran Congress leader Patangrao Kadam, also a top education baron in Maharashtra. Patangrao had won the seat for six times from Wangi-Bilawdi constituency in Sangli district. He had twice lost the elections. In the 2014 elections, the constituency was renamed as Palus-Kadegaon.

On the other hand, Vishwajeet Kadam, a former youth Congress president, who had contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, was defeated with a massive margin by Anil Shirole of BJP. This is his first election victory.

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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