'No village in Maharashtra will go to Karnataka! The state government will fight strongly in the Supreme Court to get Marathi speaking villages in Karnataka including Belgaum-Karwar-Nipani!' said Fadnavis.
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday urged politicians of Maharashtra not to use the language bogey or border issue for their political survival, as he made it clear that the state will not give even an inch of its land to the neighbouring state.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on Tuesday said the 865 Marathi-speaking villages in Karnataka (comprising of Belgaum, Karwar, Gulbarga and Bidar) should be made a Union Territory.
Opposing the demand for a separate state of Vidarbha, Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said Maharashtra should get Marathi-speaking areas of Belgaum and adjoining areas in Karnataka. "The government should remove the injustice done to Maharashtra by giving it Belgaum-Karwar areas where the Marathi-speaking populace is being oppressed," Uddhav said in a statement. "As long as the Shiv Sena is there, no one will be allowed to divide Maharashtra," he said
The Supreme Court has allowed the Maharashtra government to include additional grounds in its lawsuit over the boundary dispute with Karnataka filed in 2004 challenging the ceding of pre-dominantly Marathi-speaking areas to its neighbour.
The chief minister, accompanied by his wife and sons Aaditya Thackeray and Tejas Thackeray, visited the Shiv Sena founder's 'smritisthal' (makeshift memorial) at the Shivaji Park in Dadar area in Mumbai.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday said the areas dominated by Marathi-speaking people on the state's border with Karnataka should be declared as a Union territory till the Supreme Court gives its final verdict on the issue.
