After a gap of about 40 years, the Shiv Sena is again likely to train its gun on Malayalees. The Sena is apparently upset over the “illegal grabbing of farmland in Konkan by Malayalees”.
The party has got direct support from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and indirect support from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) over the matter.
The issue of “farmland grabbing” by the migrants from Kerala was raised in the legislative council on Friday by the members of Sena, BJP and NCP.
Sena’s Parshuram Uparkar said: “At least 5,000 migrants from Kerala have purchased land in the Konkan region by submitting forged documents to prove that they were farmers,” Uparkar alleged.
NCP’s Gurunath Kulkarni expressed concerns over the activities going on in Konkan. “The migrants from Kerala are purchasing land in Konkan because it is fertile for rubber plantation,” he said.
BJP’s Vinod Tawde alleged that the land belonging to the backward classes has been illegally transferred in the names of the migrants from Kerala. “In some cases, the land whose owners are dead has been transferred in the name of the migrants,” he said.
The law says only farmers can purchase the farmlands.
Minister of state for revenue Prakash Solanke refuted the allegations but assured that matter would be properly investigated.
A Sena MLC said outside the House that the party was seriously planning to launch an agitation against the migrants in Konkan. The Sena, soon after its launch in 1967, had targeted South Indians for “grabbing jobs of the locals”.
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