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This is an archive article published on October 9, 2019

Maharashtra: Smaller parties slam big players, say they were tricked in the end

Rashtriya Samaj Paksha's Mahadev Jankar and Swambimani Paksha's Raju Shetti are upset with the BJP and the Congress, respectively.

Maharashtra assembly elections, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, Mahadev Jankar, Swambimani Paksha, Raju Shetti Jankar said the BJP’s move had caused anger and resentment in the RSP rank and file. (File)

At least two smaller parties in the BJP-Sena alliance and Congress-NCP alliance in Maharashtra on Monday accused the bigger parties of “hoodwinking” them at the last minute, by not allowing them to field their own candidates.

An agitated Mahadev Jankar, who heads the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, alliance partner of BJP-Shiv Sena, directly accused the BJP of cheating his party. “The BJP has cheated RSP. It gave its AB forms to two of our candidates at the last minute and made them contest on its lotus symbol,” Jankar told The Indian Express.

Stating that the BJP move has caused anger and resentment in RSP rank and file, Jankar, without naming the two candidates, said they had been expelled from the party. “I don’t want to give them importance by taking their names. They have been expelled from the party. I don’t want to talk to people who ditched RSP,” he said.

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RSP sitting MLA Rahul Kaul, who is again contesting from Daund seat, is one of those expelled. The other is RSP Jintur candidate Meghana Bordikar. Both are now BJP candidates.

Jankar said his party is now left with only one candidate in Ganga Khed constituency. “We will put in our might to get the candidate elected,” he said.

However, Jankar said RSP will campaign for BJP-Shiv Sena candidates in other seats. “We are in alliance and we will follow the alliance dharma,” he said.

Raju Shetti, who heads the Swambimani Paksha, which is in alliance with Congress-NCP, accused the Congress of playing “games” with it. “At the last minute, Congress gave AB form to its candidate in Khamgaon. As a result, we had to withdraw our candidate to ensure that the BJP candidate does not win. The seat was one of the five alloted to us,” he said.

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Shetti said this sort of tactis was not expected of the Congress. “I tried to speak to Congress leaders but each of them kept passing the buck,” he said. Shetti said he had demanded 29-30 seats, but settled for five. “Out of five seats too, they have snatched one,” he said.

As per the seat-sharing arrangement between BJP and the Shiv Sena, the two major partners in the alliance, Shiv Sena will contest 124 seats while BJP will contest 164 seats, which includes 14 seats of the smaller parties.

Rayat Kranti Sanghatna headed by Sadabhau Khot has been alloted Pandharpur and Akkalkot seat, Shiv Sangram led by Vinayak Mete has been alloted Chikhli, Versova and Kinwat seats. RPI (A) led by Ramdas Athawale has been allotted Malshiras, Phaltan, Pathari, Naigaon, Mankhurd and Shivajinagar seats. All of them are contesting on lotus symbol.

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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