Maharashtra Must Set Up Welfare Office In Karnataka's Belgaum: Sena's Sanjay Raut

In his weekly column 'Rokthok' in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana', Sanjay Raut said the office would be for the welfare of the Marathi-speaking population of the area, adding that Eknath Shinde, who is Maharashtra coordination minister for border areas, should make frequent visits there.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut today said the Uddhav Thackeray government must set up an office in Belgaum, a district in Karnataka which Maharashtra claims is Marathi-speaking and therefore must be merged with the state. In his weekly column 'Rokthok' in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana', Mr Raut said the office would be for the welfare of the Marathi-speaking population of the area, adding that Eknath Shinde, who is Maharashtra coordination minister for border areas, should make frequent visits there. He said Chandrakant Patil, who was coordination minister in the previous Devendra Fadnavis regime, never visited the disputed border areas, and when he did caused confusion with some of his statements. He said the Maharashtra government should strengthen its stand against Karnataka in the boundary dispute case pending in the Supreme Court, and the state advocate general should meet Marathi-speaking people in the border areas and update them about the case.