Mumbai: For the third time in a fortnight, angry Opposition parties in Maharashtra on Saturday again attacked Karnataka Chief Minister Basavraj Bommai’s latest statements on the boiling border issue.
“Maharashtra delegation meeting Union Home Minister (Amit Shah) will not make any difference. Maharashtra has tried this in the past too. The case is in the Supreme Court. Our legitimate case in the Supreme Court is strong. Our government will not make any compromise on the border issue,” Bommai said in a tweet.
Taking strong umbrage, the Maha Vikas Aghadi member and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lashed out at Bommai besides slamming both Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis for keeping silent on the matter.
Shiv Sena-UBT chief spokesperson and MP Sanjay Raut reacted strongly to Bommai’s tweet and targeted Shinde for not saying anything on the issue.
“They have been allotted the (party) symbol of sword and shield (dhal-talwar). Instead they should have got the ‘lock’ symbol as the ‘key’ lies with the Bharatiya Janata Party,” said Raut in a swipe at Shinde.
Nationalist Congress Party national spokesperson Clyde Crasto wondered whether the statement of Bommai spelt “disrespect” to the country’s Home Minister or not.
“The CM of a state, who is also from the BJP openly passes a counter-statement related to the Home Minister of India who is also from the BJP? Are we missing something here,” Crasto asked.
Commenting on Bommai, Sena-UBT MP Arvind Sawant said that Shah has scheduled a meeting on the issue with Maharashtra leaders next week.
“But, if under such circumstances, a statement of this type comes, it means that the border row is being raked up for the 2023 Assembly elections in Karnataka,” Sawant pointed out.
AAP Mumbai President Preeti Sharma-Menon said that Bommai was backed by Shah, but now the Karnataka CM says that meeting him (Shah) on the border issue is useless.
“Who is actually in charge here..? Will the ED Sarkar (Eknath-Devendra government) now sell our Maharashtra villages to their BJP neighbours after selling our projects to Gujarat,” said Sharma-Menon sharply.
In Jalna, Sena-UBT President Uddhav Thackeray called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is visiting Maharashtra on Sunday, to clarify his stand vis-a-vis Bommai’s statements on the border row.
This is the third time in the past couple of weeks that the state Opposition has gone on the warpath against Bommai for his various utterances including staking claim to more villages from Maharashtra, announcing a grant for a Karnataka Bhavan in Kolhapur and the latest tweet on Maharashtra leaders meeting Shah, as Karnataka prepares for assembly polls in mid-2023.
(IANS)
