Chavan assails Maha minister's detention in Belagavi by K'taka police

Mumbai /Belagavi: Maharashtra PWD minister and senior Congress leader Ashok Chavan condemned the detention of minister of state Rajendra Patil Yadravkar by the Belagavi police in neighbouring Karnataka on Friday.

Yadravkar, MLA from Shirol in Kolhapur, had gone to Belagavi, over 490 kilometres from here, to pay tribute to the martyrs of the movement for the merger of Marathi speaking villages in Karnataka into Maharashtra.

A gathering is organised every year on this day to honour those who died during the first ‘Samyukta Maharashtra Andolan’ on January 17, 1956.

“The high-handedness of the Karnataka police not to allow the minister to even lay a wreath for the martyrs is condemnable,” Chavan said.

Chavan also criticised the manhandling and detention of the minister by the police. The minister was later let off.

Karnataka, which is locked in a border dispute with Maharashtra, has a BJP government.