Athawale’s RPI may go solo in local body polls

 

 

 

Upset over his party not given ministerial post and MLC seat, Union Minister of State for Social Justice and National President of RPI(A) Ramdas Athawale said, “We should get some seats by Mahayuti, else RPI may think of contesting the municipal and district elections on its own.” Athawale was addressing mediapersons at Ravi Bhavan on Sunday. “We had demanded one ministerial post and MLC seat in the State for the RPI (A). But we did not get it. That is why we are upset. We got 6 MLCs seats when we were in an alliance with the Congress. However, we expressed regret that we were not getting a share when we are in the grand alliance since 2012.

 

We should get some seats in the grand alliance in the upcoming local body elections,” demanded Athawale. Calling ‘One Nation, One Election’ bill as constitution, Athawale stated, “One Nation, One Election is a provision in the constitution itself. The first few elections were held in the same lines. But later, after the incident of withdrawing support from the ruling party, this method was disrupted. Also, after the Government of various parties came into existence, this method was abandoned. Now, Athawale clarified to a question that his party has full support for this bill brought by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He had come to the city for a tribute program for former MLA Upendra Shende. Senior party leaders Gautam Sonawane, Vijay Aglave, Rajan Waghmare, Balu Gharde, Vinod Thul and others were present.