‘Mute spectator’: Priyanka Chaturvedi slams Shinde govt after trucks attacked

Members of various pro-Kannada organisations gathered at NH-48 near Belagavi and allegedly pelted stones at trucks bearing Maharashtra registration numbers.

Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi accused the Maharashtra state government led by Eknath Shinde of being a “mute spectator” after Karnataka Rakshana Vedike members staged a protest at National Highway 48 near Belagavi and reportedly vandalised several Maharashtra registered trucks.

Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi. (ANI file)

Members of various pro-Kannada organisations gathered at NH-48 near Belagavi and allegedly pelted stones at trucks bearing Maharashtra registration numbers.

“Vehicles from Maharashtra damaged & stopped by activists in Belgavi and the Maharashtra state government continues to be mute spectator to it. This is shameful, why can’t Maharashtra CM do some tough talking with his counterpart in Karnataka?” Chaturvedi tweeted.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar also termed the situation in the border areas of Maharashtra and Karnataka as "worrisome", and said time has come to take a stand after seeing what is happening there.

Maharashtra ministers Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai, appointed for coordinating the state's border dispute with Karnataka, were earlier scheduled to meet activists of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti at Belagavi in the southern state on Tuesday and hold talks with them on the decades-old border issue. Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai had earlier said he will ask his Maharashtra counterpart Shinde not to send his cabinet colleagues to Belagavi as their visit may disrupt the law and order situation in the border district. Asserting the border dispute with Maharashtra is settled, the CM said he has already instructed the officials concerned regarding the measures to be taken in case the ministers go ahead with the visit, and that the government will not hesitate to take any legal action.

Meanwhile, activists of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction on Tuesday sprayed black and orange paints on at least three Karnataka state transport buses in Swargate area of Pune city, news agency PTI reported. They also wrote "Jai Maharashtra" on these buses. A local leader of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) faction confirmed they painted the buses.

Workers of the Shiv Sena (UBT) faction sprayed at least two-three buses of Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) with black paint.

Belagavi district administration in Karnataka on Monday issued orders barring entry of the two Maharashtra ministers and leaders to the city. Prohibitory orders were issued under section 144 of CrPC, barring their entry, besides that of an MP, who are members of the Maharashtra High Power Committee on the Border Dispute.

Bommai recently sought a merger of "Kannada-speaking" areas in Maharashtra's Akkalkot and Solapur and had also said some villages in Jat taluka in Sangli district wanted to join the southern state.

(With inputs from PTI)