India, April 13 -- When state Congress chief Harshvardhan Sapkal announced that his party would contest the assembly by-election in Baramati opposite Sunetra Pawar, he was ridiculed by the ruling parties and even Congress allies. Some of his party colleagues too were opposed to the move. Sapkal was criticised for not following Maharashtra's political tradition, where, in the event of a prominent politician dying, parties do not field a candidate if the politician's kin choose to stand in the subsequent by-election. On social media, Sapkal was trolled for contesting a seat where the Congress candidate would probably have lost even his deposit. Sapkal, however, stuck to his guns, pointing out that there were several elections where parties did field candidates after the death of the sitting legislator. Meanwhile, the last two days before the deadline for withdrawal of candidature saw a flurry of activity, with several top leaders, including CM Devendra Fadnavis and NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar, appealing to the Congress to withdraw. Party insiders said that Sunetra Pawar spoke to Sapkal more than once while Fadnavis communicated with him on senior NCP minister Dhananjay Munde's phone. During her Delhi visit, Sunetra Pawar also met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. The party finally decided to withdraw. There have been mixed reactions to the episode, with some stating that Sapkal was unnecessarily being adamant while others in his own party believe that he did what most of his predecessors avoided-tried to enter Pawar territory despite the odds, and also acted on his endeavour to create a perception that the Congress was the main opposition party in the state. Either way, one thing is certain: the Congress became a talking point for some time. Reacting aggressively to the Congress' initial refusal to withdraw its candidate, a peeved Parth Pawar, Sunetra's son and now NCP Rajya Sabha MP, said that the party's attitude would lead to its downfall in Maharashtra. He was roundly criticised for this by Congress leaders and even those in his own family. Sharad Pawar expressed doubts about Parth's maturity, Supriya Sule reminded him that the Congress had often helped them, and cousin Rohit publicly disagreed with him. Scarcely any senior NCP leader came to his defence, and subsequently his mother had to personally request Kharge to withdraw the Congress candidate. It was Parth's younger brother, Jay, who sought to ring down the curtain on the controversy on Thursday by publicly thanking the Congress for withdrawing from the fray. IAS officer Tukaram Mundhe is now known for being transferred from post to post by politicians who find it difficult to deal with him. The 2005-batch officer has been transferred over 20 times till now. In the latest instance, on March 31, he was shifted from the persons with disabilities welfare department after he launched a drive to ferret out and take action against staffers who, despite being ineligible, had purloined government jobs from the disabled persons quota. He was transferred to the disaster management, relief and rehabilitation department as its secretary but this was cancelled within a week. When the transfer happened, Mundhe was in West Bengal as an election observer and then rushed home, as his mother passed away. Last Tuesday, his posting was cancelled and the charge was given to another officer. Mundhe has now been kept waiting for his new assignment. The buzz in Mantralaya is that somebody in the government was not keen to have him in the disaster control department which is in charge of several infrastructure-related works for the Simhastha Kumbh Mela next year. Arvind Sawant, South Mumbai MP and Shiv Sena (UBT) group leader in the Lok Sabha, was quizzed by media persons on Friday following fresh conjecture that several Sena (UBT) MPs could be joining the Eknath Shinde led Shiv Sena. When Sawant dismissed the speculation, a media person asked him if he would state it in writing. An irked Sawant took out his letterhead and wrote a public letter. He then read out what he had written-that he would never leave the party and would always be a Thackeray loyalist. "I was a union minister and quit the post after one phone call from Uddhav Thackeray," he said later. "I didn't have to but I wrote the public letter because I was fed up with the constant speculation."...