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Kolhe flies high in Shirur, says voters have given Ajit Pawar a befitting reply

Much before the counting of votes was taken up, Kolhe's name as the possible winner was doing the rounds in Pune district. Even the exit polls had predicted his victory. He lived up to the top billing in the final analysis.

Ajit PawarAdhalrao was in Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Before the election, he was forced to join NCP led by Ajit Pawar. (Express Photo)

He was accused of concentrating on his acting career rather than slogging as an MP. And no less than Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had vowed to defeat him.

Beating all odds, taunts and acidic comments, NCP (SP) candidate Amol Kolhe defeated NCP candidate Shivajirao Adhalrao-Patil by a margin of over 50,000 votes and thereby securing his second consecutive victory.

Right from the counting of postal ballots to the end of 27th round of counting, Kolhe remained ahead and in the end, emerged victorious by a convincing margin.

Much before the counting of votes was taken up, Kolhe’s name as the possible winner was doing the rounds in Pune district. Even the exit polls had predicted his victory. He lived up to the top billing in the final analysis.

Though it looked like an easy victory for Kolhe, it was not so as Ajit Pawar had left no stone unturned to ensure his defeat. Ajit Pawar had publicly declared that he will defeat Kolhe. Ajit Pawar held a grudge against Kolhe because he refused to go with him when he decided to join hands with BJP and form the Mahayuti government. Kolhe preferred to remain with his mentor Sharad Pawar.

Though Ajit Pawar went ballistic against him while speaking to reporters and even during rallies in Shirur constituency, Kolhe did not hit back in an acerbic tone. He kept saying that Ajit Pawar was a tall leader and only people will give him a reply.

And today, his words came true. “The self-respecting voters of Shirur have given a befitting reply…,” he said when he was asked about Ajit Pawar’s vow to defeat him.

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Kolhe said as promised he will give a break to his acting career on televisions. “My constituency will remain my priority,” he said.

So rattled was his opponent Adhalrao by his defeat that he said he didn’t know what went wrong. “I will have to analyse what went wrong…I accept people’s verdict,” he said. Adhalrao had won the Shirur seat for three consecutive times before Kolhe defeated him in 2019 elections.

Adhalrao was in Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Before the election, he was forced to join NCP led by Ajit Pawar. The NCP had secured the Shirur seat for itself during the seat-sharing talks but was struggling to find a strong candidate until it was decided to field Adhalrao.

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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