Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said his party believes in Akhand Bharat (undivided India) and that one day Pakistan’s largest city Karachi will be a part of India. The BJP leader made the remarks while commenting on the controversy that erupted after a Shiv Sena party leader asked the Karachi Sweets shop owner to drop Karachi from its name.
Fadnavis on Saturday told reporters that the party believes in an undivided nation, and also believes that Karachi will be a part of India one day.
Earlier, a video of a Shiv Sena leader Nitin Nandgaokar went viral where he was allegedly asking a Karachi Sweets shop owner in Mumbai’s Bandra West to change the word Karachi to something in Marathi from his shop name. He said that he hates Pakistan and would not tolerate anything related to it being part of Mumbai.
Soon after Nandgaonkar’s furor on social media, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said that since the last 60 years, Karachi bakery and Karachi sweets have been there in India, and they have no reference to Pakistan. Moreover, it makes no sense to change their names now, he said in a tweet.
Raut also clarified that the demand for change of name is not his party’s official stance.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Nawab Malik on Sunday commented on Fadnavis’ remark and said the Nationalist Congress Party will welcome the move if BJP wishes to merge Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. If the Berlin wall can be demolished then India, Pakistan and Bangladesh can come together and be a single country, Malik told news agency ANI.
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Malik said the NCP has been saying that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh should be merged as similar to the way Fadnavis had said Pakistan’s Karachi would be a part of India in time.