Kannadigas May Find It Difficult To Do Business In Mumbai Warns Shiv Sena Leader Sanjay Raut

Shiv Sena‘s Sanjay Raut in his editorial Rokthok in the party mouthpiece Saamna has said that Kannadigas in Mumbai may find it difficult to do business if skirmishes between the linguistically divided groups were to reach the financial capital.

Raut said the above reflecting on Belagavi and the border district’s linguistic travails and Maharashtra’s claim on the region that has been a part of Karnataka since the linguistic reorganisation of states.

In this piece that he penned on 18 April, Raut reflects on what lies ahead for the Marathi speaking folk in the region and how the 26-year-old Shubham Shelkhe’s candidate and the unified support of two different generations of Marathi speakers is a phenomenon being witnessed after ages in “Marathi Bhoomi” of ‘Belgaum’.

Dismissing claims that the ‘new generation‘ of Marathi speakers in the region do not see a connect with the border dispute and fight for ‘Marathi asmita’ that has been on for the last 65 years, Raut opines that ‘in fact the struggle has only gotten more vigorous since the new gen took over the reins’.

As he lists out a set of do-s and don't-s for the ’Marathi- manoos’ and leadership in the context of the border dispute, Raut said around 650 buses come from Karnataka to Maharashtra while it is ‘only 50 buses that go from Maharashtra to Karnataka’.

And that, when Marathi-speaking people are attacked in Belgaum, Shiv Sainiks ‘take revenge’ by vandalising transport buses belonging to Karnataka coming into Maharashtra.

Raut goes on to say that if this were to happen in Mumbai, then ‘Kannadigas would find it difficult to do business in Maharashtra’.

He also alleges that shifting of the Linguistic Minorities department from Belagavi to Chennai is also a deliberate attempt to get even with Marathi speaking people in the region.

Taking shots at former chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Raut said it is the ‘misfortune of whole of Maharahtra’ that he was there to campaign against the ‘Marathi candidate of Maharashtra Ekikaran Samithi’ this election season. ‘He could have avoided going to Belagaum but he didn’t,’ he says, adding that this was what has hurt those fighting for Marathi in the district.