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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

YouTuber challenges FIR, LoC in HC

Mumbai : The Bombay High Court issued notice to the state government on a petition filed by UK-based medico and YouTuber, Dr. Sangram Patil, seeking to quash a Mumbai Police FIR and revoking a Look Out Circular in a criminal case lodged against him, on Thursday.   Justice Ashwin D. Bhobe, who heard the matter with preliminary submissions from both sides, sought a response from the state government and posted the matter for Feb. 4.   Maharashtra Advocate-General Milind Sathe informed the court...

YouTuber challenges FIR, LoC in HC

Mumbai : The Bombay High Court issued notice to the state government on a petition filed by UK-based medico and YouTuber, Dr. Sangram Patil, seeking to quash a Mumbai Police FIR and revoking a Look Out Circular in a criminal case lodged against him, on Thursday.   Justice Ashwin D. Bhobe, who heard the matter with preliminary submissions from both sides, sought a response from the state government and posted the matter for Feb. 4.   Maharashtra Advocate-General Milind Sathe informed the court that the state would file its reply within a week in the matter.   Indian-origin Dr. Patil, hailing from Jalgaon, is facing a criminal case here for posting allegedly objectionable content involving Bharatiya Janata Party leaders on social media.   After his posts on a FB page, ‘Shehar Vikas Aghadi’, a Mumbai BJP media cell functionary lodged a criminal complaint following which the NM Joshi Marg Police registered a FIR (Dec. 18, 2025) and subsequently issued a LoC against Dr. Patil, restricting his travels.   The complainant Nikhil Bhamre filed the complaint in December 2025, contending that Dr. Patil on Dec. 14 posted offensive content intended to spread ‘disinformation and falsehoods’ about the BJP and its leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.   Among others, the police invoked BNSS Sec. 353(2) that attracts a 3-year jail term for publishing or circulating statements or rumours through electronic media with intent to promote enmity or hatred between communities.   Based on the FIR, Dr. Patil was detained and questioned for 15 hours when he arrived with his wife from London at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (Jan. 10), and again prevented from returning to Manchester, UK on Jan. 19 in view of the ongoing investigations.   On Wednesday (Jan. 21) Dr. Patil recorded his statement before the Mumbai Police and now he has moved the high court. Besides seeking quashing of the FIR and the LoC, he has sought removal of his name from the database imposing restrictions on his international travels.   Through his Senior Advocate Sudeep Pasbola, the medico has sought interim relief in the form of a stay on further probe by Crime Branch-III and coercive action, restraint on filing any charge-sheet during the pendency of the petition and permission to go back to the UK.   Pasbola submitted to the court that Dr. Patil had voluntarily travelled from the UK to India and was unaware of the FIR when he landed here. Sathe argued that Patil had appeared in connection with other posts and was not fully cooperating with the investigators.

Once a Cong citadel, now a battleground for rival Senas

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

rival Senas

Mumbai: Maharashtra’s coastal belt, stretching from Mumbai to the southernmost district of Sindhudurg, was once a Congress citadel, but the party lost ground to the undivided Shiv Sena over the years.


The coastal Konkan belt’s economy was known to be dependent on money orders sent from Mumbai, where most of its residents migrated for work and business after Maharashtra achieved statehood in 1960. But the situation is no longer the same.


The region accounts for 75 of the total 288 state assembly seats, including 36 in Mumbai, and is expected to play a key role in deciding which coalition – ruling Mahayuti or opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) – governs Maharashtra after the November 20 polls.


Former CM and BJP Lok Sabha MP from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Narayan Rane, who hails from the picturesque region, told PTI that Konkan has now become self-sufficient, thriving on exports of fish, mangoes and cashews.


“Youths are embracing entrepreneurship. Infrastructure has also expanded with enhanced air and rail connectivity. There is sufficient electricity and water. The region has seen tremendous economic transformation,” said Rane, who won as Shiv Sena MLA from Malwan in Sindhudurg for the first time in 1990.


“I want to develop Ratnagiri as a tourism district, similar to Sindhudurg,” said the 72-year-old politician credited with establishing and expanding the undivided Shiv Sena before quitting the party. State minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who was the lone Shiv Sena MLA to get elected on “mashal” (flaming torch) symbol from Mumbai (Mazgaon seat) in 1985, said the political realignments of the last five years would have a greater impact on urban areas than on rural ones.


Bhujbal, now with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, pointed out that the undivided Shiv Sena and the Congress were once bitter rivals in the region. But after the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena, Thane district, part of the Konkan division and political turf of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, will see a clash between the rival factions, he opined. “I feel more than 30 Independents will be elected (all over Maharashtra) and they will hold the key to the next government formation,” Bhujbal maintained.


In the mid-1980s, the Shiv Sena, which started out as a son-of-the-soil party, adopted Hindutva and became a key rival of the Congress which was guided by “secularism”. By the 1980s, Shiv Sena had made major gains in Mumbai, and by 1990, it formed an alliance with the BJP on the common platform of Hindutva. In 1995, the Shiv Sena-BJP formed a government.


This partnership reshaped the politics of the region, where the Shiv Sena continued to grow at the expense of Congress.


Stalwarts like Hashu Advani, Ram Naik, and Ram Kapse played pivotal roles in the BJP’s success. Shiv Sena leaders like Chhagan Bhujbal, Leeladhar Dake, and Pramod Navalkar helped the party grow during the 1980s.


In 2014, riding on the “Modi wave”, the BJP made inroads into Mumbai and its surrounding regions.

Data shows the Congress’s slide in Konkan began in 1978. The Shiv Sena expanded itself at the cost of Communists and other smaller parties opposed to the Congress to emerge as a rival to the Grand Old Party. In 1962, the coastal belt had 57 assembly seats, a number which has now gone up to 75. From 1962 to 1978, the Congress held sway in Mumbai and other parts of Konkan, while non-Congress space was occupied by the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), Praja Socialist Party, RPI and Socialist Party of India.


Literary stalwart Acharya Pralhad Keshav Atre was elected from Dadar in Mumbai as an independent. In 1972, Pramod Navalkar of the Shiv Sena won from Girgaum in Mumbai with Congress support, while Mrinal Gore was elected on a Socialist Party of India ticket from Malad in the metropolis.


Since 2014, the BJP has emerged as the dominant force in the coastal belt. In 2019, political dynamics shifted yet again, with the once-rivals Shiv Sena and Congress becoming allies. This was followed by a split in the regional saffron party with the Shiv Sena (UBT) coming into existence.


-PTI

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