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Judge us by our work, not by which party we belong to, say candidates

Bagwe won the 2009 assembly elections by defeating Sadanand Shetty of Shiv Sena with a margin of 37,325 votes.

The chant of ‘Judge us by our work and not which party we belong to’ is unanimous among all the main party candidates in the Cantonment assembly seat. ‘Paksha peksha vyakti kasa aahe’ (How does the candidate fare more than the party) is how sitting MLA Ramesh Bagwe sums up the attitude of the contestants in Pune’s Cantonment assembly constituency.

Reserved for Scheduled Caste, the assembly seat has been occupied by Congress since 1999. Bagwe won the 2009 assembly elections by defeating Sadanand Shetty of Shiv Sena with a margin of 37,325 votes. With a straight fight among all the major parties in this elections, when asked if the victory margin would shrink this time, Bagwe claimed the ‘trump card’ is with the Congress this time.

“People in Cantonment area know our work. The Congress is known for its secular ideology and over the past five years as MLA, I have been in direct contact with people and solving their problems,” Bagwe told Newsline as he headed to celebrate Dussehra with residents of Panchsheel Nagar at Ghorpadi.

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Bagwe’s son Avinash, who manages his campaign, reels off the number of achievements in the last five years – from renovating the Idgah Maidan, setting up an indoor boxing stadium at Bhawani Peth, a football ground near Sopan baug to fixing a 40-year-old drainage line in old areas of the Cantonment. “It is not only works done for Muslim and Christian communities such as providing computers at Anglo Urdu school, setting up an Urdu medium school in Balewadi or setting up a compound wall near the St. Sepulchre cemetery. We have built samaj mandirs at Tadiwala Road for the Buddhist community apart from from redoing the facade of the Ayyappa mandir at Rasta Peth,” he said.

While Bagwe is sitting pretty on the poll plank of development works done during his tenure, his opponents lash out on the traffic chaos in Pune cantonment area. On the one hand there are sprawling slums and on the other there are a cluster of posh societies in the area. Apart from the traffic chaos at various areas, former MLA and BJP candidate Dilip Kamble is particularly critical about how the Congress government did not release scholarships worth Rs 23,000 for the Dalit and scheduled caste communities. “We are not criticising the candidates but telling people to judge our work. If elected to power the focus will be to amend the old 1924 Cantonment Act so that residents are able to make alterations to their old houses,” says Kamble who is confident of a win specially as the RPI (A) candidate Navnath Kamble withdrew from the Cantonment seat on directions of party leaders.

Festive offer

“The going may not be so easy as NCP candidate Bhagwan Vairat, MNS’s Ajay Tayde and Shiv Sena’s Parshuram Wadekar are also in the fray. Wadekar, who had earlier challenged Navnath Kamble from contesting the seat, had defected to Shiv Sena. Wadekar claimed that RPI had ignored his claim for a ticket and compelled him to join the Sena. “However, Bhim Shakti and Shiv Shakti have joined hands — and this will ensure our victory,” says a confident Wadekar who also pointed out that RPI (A) workers were “fed up” of frequent shifting of loyalties.

Admitting that NCP’s official candidate Bhagwan Vairat was not popularly known barring his work in the slums, party leaders are now banking on stalwarts such as Sharad Pawar to address rallies .

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Tayde has been active on social media, apart from distributing post cards listing his achievements such as renovating the Shivaji stadium at Juna Bazaar and others through door-to-door visits.

First uploaded on: 04-10-2014 at 04:51 IST
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