Mumbai Diary

Express News Service

Patole lands in soup over Gandhi remarksMaharashtra Congress president Nana Patole has abashed himself as well as his organisation over his improptu remark on Mahatma Gandhi. While speaking about fascist forces, Patole referred to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination as ‘vadh’ instead of ‘hatya. The term ‘vadh’ refers to the slaying of evil while ‘hatya’ is assassination or murder. The Congress was quick to term the incident as a slip of tongue. The party chief and functionaries earlier had a hard time convincing the BJP and others that he did not use any unparliamentary words against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claiming that he was referring a local goon who goes by the alias Modi. 

MVA looking to translate civic poll win into powerMaha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won the highest number of seats in the local body elections even though the BJP has emerged as the single largest party. However, the three parties – Congress, NCP and the Shiv Sena – want to translate the victory by winning over maximum urban local bodies. Besides, NCP state chief Jayant Patil, Shiv Sena minister Subhash Desai and Congress state president Nana Patole have jointly issued a set of guidelines for their party members to follow. The trio is in process of realising the alliance dharma and consolidating power in maximum urban local bodies. The deal is to hand the urban local body top post to the party that wrests most seats there. The remaining alliance constituents will be accommodated in other lower positions.

Uddhav asks party cadre to learn from NCPShiv Sena’s unsatisfactory show in the local body elections has visibly upset Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who has promised to reach out to the electorate as well as his party workers. He has even asked ministers and leaders from the party to work on the lines of the functioning exhibited by NCP.  NCP had wrested power in over 50 seats this time. The CM also quoted the proverb ‘charity begins from home’ to put his point across. Taking the advice seriously, Aaditya Thackeray made visits to Aurangabad and Nasik recently to connect with voters and take up development works.

Star teacher falls from grace over lobbying Spectators in the state have their jaws dropped over a revelation about the Global Teacher Prize-winning zila panchayat school teacher Ranjit Disale. Gained popularity for his innovative teaching methods including using QR codes in textbooks, the teacher was found to have sought a two-year leave to do research in the US. The teacher, who took home $1 billion in award money, was recently accused of lobbying for major government education contracts on behalf of the foundation which gives away the award. Now, questions are being raised as to whether the award was given to facilitate multi-crore government education contracts.

Sudhir Suryawanshi Our correspondent in Maharashtra [email protected]

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