Karnataka - Belgaum   

President urged to recall Governor

Staff Correspondent

`Chaturvedi has acted against the Constitution by speaking on the resolution in public'

Belgaum: Maharashtra Ekikaran Samithi (MES) has demanded that the President immediately recall the Governor T.N. Chaturvedi and dissolve the Legislative Assembly.

In a letter to the President copies of which were circulated to the press here on Wednesday, the MES MLA Manohar Kinekar, the former MES MLA and president of Belgaum city unit of the samithi, N.G. Tarale, and the acting president of the unit, Deepak Dalvi, have pointed out that Mr. Chaturvedi as head of the State is not supposed to take part or express views on matters related to politics.

Yet he has expressed his views on a political matter (on the Belgaum City Corporation adopting a resolution requesting the Supreme Court and Centre to merge Belgaum and other parts of the State with Maharashtra) at a public gathering, which is against the Constitution, they said. Citing the recent incidents following the city corporation adopting the resolution, including the attack on the Mayor Vijay Pandurang More and two other MES leaders by Kannada activists in Bangalore, they pointed out that the people (Marathi linguistic community) of the area had been deprived of their right to deal, act, think or write in their mother tongue as they have been forcibly included in Karnataka (under reorganisation of states).

They said about 20 lakh people residing in this area have been agitating for merger of the area (under dispute) with Maharashtra even the State was reorganised.

Much against the wishes and will of the people, the entire region was included in Karnataka where the language and culture was different from that of the Marathis.

Many ways were adopted to settle the issue and even former Prime Ministers late Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee had tried to resolve the issue but Karnataka kept on evading dialogues and opposed the efforts to solve the issue democratically. The Maharashtra Government conceded the request of MES and filed a suit before the Supreme Court whose decision is awaited, they said.

Marathi-speaking candidates have been winning gram and taluk panchayat, municipalities and corporation elections in the disputed area, they said.

These bodies have been adopting resolutions on merger in their meetings — a process that has been going on since 1956.

But following one such resolution adopted by the city corporation recently requesting the Supreme Court and the Union Government to resolve the problem, a few Kannada activists had manhandled the Mayor in Bangalore insulting the Marathi people of the region, they said.

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