Mumbai: Reacting strongly to the dissolution
of Belgaum municipal corporation in Karnataka, Shiv Sena on Friday
demanded that the state government of the neighbouring state,
controlled by its ally BJP, should be dissolved.
Belgaum, which has a sizable Marathi-speaking population,
has been a bone of contention between the two states.
"For the last so many years, the Marathi-speaking people
of the border area are saying that they want to be a part of
Maharashtra, but nobody is listening," Sena executive
president Uddhav Thackeray told reporters here.
He also said that Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra
was not pleading the state's case before the Supreme Court
as aggressively as the Karnataka government was.
Therefore, till the issue was resolved by the court, the
disputed area should be made a union territory, Uddhav said,
adding that the Karnataka government should be dissolved.
He said the BJP government in Karnataka had no fear of
the party's central leadership.
Uddhav also said that Sena would raise the issue in
Parliament as well as in Assembly.
Earlier in the day, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray
criticised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for not doing
anything to resolve the boundary dispute.
In a statement, he alleged that the Belgaum Corporation
was dissolved because Karnataka government could not come to
terms with the fact that Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (which
seeks Belgaum's inclusion in Maharashtra) ruled in the
civic body.
PTI
First Published: Friday, December 16, 2011, 21:57