Maha CM knows intensity of border dispute, will take right steps: Sena MP

Shiv Sena MP and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s son Shrikant Shinde on Monday said the state government will take the right steps on Maharashtra’s border dispute with Karnataka.

The issue of the Maharashtra-Karnataka border row heated up in the ongoing winter session of the state Assembly here on Monday, with the opposition demanding a resolution on the issue.

Talking to reporters here, the Sena MP said the chief minister had been in jail for taking part in an agitation over the border issue in the past and knows the intensity of the dispute well.

The state government is with the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti and right steps will be taken regarding the issue, he said.

Earlier in the day, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis informed the legislative Assembly that the state government will do whatever it can to ensure that the Marathi-speaking people in Karnataka get justice and asserted that the state government will fight even for an inch of land.

On the Opposition’s demand for resignation of state Minister Abdul Sattar alleging an irregularity in ordering ‘regularisation’ of the possession of land reserved for grazing in favour of a private person, Shinde said the opposition parties don’t have any real issues to raise and were making allegations without doing any research.

Sattar had passed the order in June 2022 when he was the Minister of State for Revenue in the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court last week issued a notice to Sattar for ordering ‘regularisation’ of the possession of land reserved for public ‘gairan’ (grazing) in favour of a private person in the face of a civil court order.

The MP also took potshots at the Thackeray-led faction of the Shiv Sena stating that it needs to introspect why people are leaving the fold and where it is going wrong.