Shiv Sena always likes to involve itself in bravado. Since party chief late Bal Thackeray’s time, the Sena has been shouting about this issue, says Ratnakar Mahajan
The Shiv Sena, in yet another attempt to win over the Marathi manoos from the border districts of Maharashtra, Belgaum and other adjoining areas of Karnataka, on Friday announced that if voted to power, the party-led government will retrieve ''Karnataka Occupied Maharashtra'' in the state.
However, party president Uddhav Thackeray, who is currently on a three-day visit to Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara where BJP has made sufficient inroads, did not spell out a roadmap for the same. Instead, he merely reiterated Shiv Sena's unstinted support for the Marathi-speaking people from the disputed Maharashtra Karnataka border area.
Thackeray's move to rake up the issue comes at a time when the BJP has already launched state-wide rallies against the Congress government ahead of the election to the Karnataka Assembly slated in the first half of 2018. Shiv Sena minister Diwakar Raote led a group of Sena workers to Belgaum in May to protest after Karnataka urban development minister R Roshan Baig made a statement that elected representatives who shout 'Jai Maharashtra' slogans would stand to lose their elected posts in Karnataka. However, Raote was stopped at the border.
Shiv Sena recently took a pot shot at the state Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis saying if he is a "proud Marathi" he should reach out to the Marathi populace.
State Congress spokesman Ratnakar Mahajan told DNA, "Shiv Sena always likes to involve itself in bravado. Since party chief late Bal Thackeray's time, the Sena has been shouting about this issue but has never come out with a workable solution to the problem."
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