Karnataka: KP Nanjundi joins Congress hours after resignation from BJP
Nanjundi took the primary membership of the Congress party in the presence of Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar and AICC general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala.
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, who on Saturday arrived at the Belgaum airport in Karnataka, was reportedly escorted to an unknown destination by the police.
Earlier in the day, Raut slammed the BJP government in Karnataka for allegedly barring him from visiting the district.
“Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Rohingyas can enter India but no one from Maharashtra can go to Belgaum. This is wrong. There is a dispute but it should not be so much that restrictions have to imposed on each other,” Raut told reporters.
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“This is wrong. We all are Indians. I will go there and meet people and attend programs, let there be prohibitions,” he added.
His remarks came as the Rajya Sabha MP was intimated that he has been banned from visiting the district.
Raut has alleged that Marathi-speaking people were under attack in the neighbouring state.
“For some time now, Marathi people and Marathi language are constantly under attack by the Karnataka government and even Marathi literary meets have been banned,” he added.
Earlier on Friday, Maharashtra Minister Rajendra Patil Yedravkar was detained in Belgaum and was not allowed to speak at a meeting organised by the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti.
The minister had gone to pay respects to the martyrs of the united Maharashtra movement.
Maharashtra and Karnataka have been embroiled in a border dispute, centring around Belgaum for decades.
Maharashtra claims Belgaum, part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency but currently, it is a district of Karnataka, on linguistic grounds.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had raked up the issue and described Belgaum district as ‘Karnataka occupied Maharashtra’.
In 2018, then Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy had said his government was mulling shifting of its offices to the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belgaum, in an attempt to address allegations of discrimination levelled by the people of north Karnataka.
Maharashtra Government has been fighting the case in the Supreme Court for nearly 12 years to get Belgaum and adjoining areas back from Karnataka.
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