Former Maharashtra chief minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis has said that the Pakistani city of Karachi will one day be part of India. “We believe in ‘Akhand Bharat’. We also believe that Karachi will be part of India one day,” he said on Saturday.
The comments come amid an ongoing exchange after a Shiv Sena leader, Nitin Madhukar Nandgaonkar, threatened the owner of a candy shop in Bandra, Karachi Sweets, to change his name because it coincided with a city in Pakistan.
In a video that went viral, Nandgaonkar was seen telling the owner of the candy shop in Bandra West how he “hates the name because of its association with Pakistan and terrorists.” Then the owner tried to explain to Nandgaonkar that the name was given by his ancestors because they had come from Karachi after the partition, to which the Shiv Sena leader argued that he could name his shop after anything, his ancestors or himself, but not Karachi because it is a “place associated with terrorists”.
Shortly after Nandgaonkar’s action created a sensation on social media, Sanjay Raut said it was not Shiv Sena’s official position to change the name and defended the name of the candy store. He said that Karachi Bakery and Karachi sweets had been in Mumbai for the past 60 years and had nothing to do with Pakistan. “It makes no sense to ask that they change their names now. He also said that the demand for change is not the official position of the party,” he had said.
Fadvanis’ comments followed, which also elicited a response from PNC leader Nawab Malik, who said the Maharashtra party would welcome the BJP move “if it creates a country by merging India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.”
In response to his statement, Malik said that in the way that Fadnavis had said that Karachi would be part of India in time, the PNC has been saying that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh should merge.
“If the Berlin wall can be demolished, why can’t India, Pakistan and Bangladesh unite? If the BJP wants to merge these three countries and make one country, we will definitely welcome it,” he said.
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