The PCB squad and some policemen present on the spot tried to dissuade this reporter from clicking pictures of the hoarding removal drive. The official told this correspondent that they were sandwiched between the centre and the state.The hoardings put up near Cantonment Court, Pul Gate and East Street were torn and removed while the BJP sponsored hoardings in the area remained intact.PCB CEO Amit Kumar could not be reached for his comments. Currently, PCB has a BJP nominated member in the board. Traditionally, the Congress had a strong upper hand in the Pune Cantonment area for decades together till its sitting MLA Ramesh Bagwe was defeated by the BJP. He represented the constituency from 2009 to 2014 when he was defeated by BJP’s Dilip Kamble. All the 62 cantonments including PCB are under direct control of the Ministry of Defence, New Delhi.Senior Congress leader Mohan Joshi said “ The act of removal of hoardings criticizing PM Modi shows that he is afraid of the citizens. We strongly condemn the act of removing hoardings of Congress Party by the PCB. The hoarding praising Modi are still displayed and no action has been taken against them. The anti democratic behavior shown by the BJP proves that Modi believes in implementing Hitlerian agenda and not democracy ,” he said. Joshi further said that black flags will be waved at PM Modi during his visit to Pune on Saturday.
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