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This is an archive article published on October 25, 2019

Pune: NCP’s Anna Bansode defeats Sena MLA in Pimpri

Party sources said Bansode had not been the NCP’s first choice for the Pimpri ticket. They said NCP leader Ajit Pawar had acquiesced after many leaders petitioned him to pick Bansode.

NCP’s Bansode defeats Sena MLA in Pimpri NCP’s Anna Bansode (Source: Facebook)

The NCP’s Anna Bansode won from Pimpri reserved Assembly constituency, defeating Shiv Sena’s sitting MLA Gautam Chabukswar with a margin of 16,856 votes.

Bansode had in the 2014 elections lost by just about 2,000 votes. The Shiv Sena had fielded Chabukswar despite considerable opposition to his nomination. Party sources also said voter anger against Chabukswar might have played a role, as he was not seen as very active after his 2014 win. Following his victory, Bansode said, “I will do everything to live up to the expectations of the people.”

Party sources said Bansode had not been the NCP’s first choice for the Pimpri ticket. They said NCP leader Ajit Pawar had acquiesced after many leaders petitioned him to pick Bansode.

During the counting of votes at Balewadi stadium, Chabukswar had been leading until the seventh round. Afterwards, Bansode pulled ahead and increased the margin with every round. Satish Landge, a staunch supporter of Bansode, said, “Bansode’s contact with voters during the last five years was far better than the sitting MLA, who was rarely seen or heard in the constituency. We were confident that he would win and are delighted that it finally happened.”

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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