Mumbai Mayor writes to PM Modi requesting merger of 865 Karnataka villages with Maharashtra

For the merging process, Mayor Kishori Pednekar wrote a letter to Modi on August 9.

Mayor Kishori Pednekar who is an Indian politician serving Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has written a letter to PM Narendra Modi asking him to merge 865 border villages with Maharashtra, which are currently part of Karnataka.

Mayor Kishori Pednekar said that the villages were part of Karnataka from 1956. However, the states separated on the basis of language and the villagers still speak Marathi.

In the villages where 40 lakh people reside, Marathi is spoken as mother tongue and now they want to be part of Maharashtra. As the people were staying in Karnataka they were forced to follow other cultures and languages. People have been facing difficulties relating to this for the last 65 years, she added. She asked Narendra Modi on the occasion of August 9 (Revolution Day), to support these 40 lakh people in Maharashtra.

Meanwhile, for decades Maharashtra and Karnataka have fought in connection with the Belgaum border. The Belgaum border is the place where people mostly speak Marathi but Karnataka is not agreeing to their demands.