Get Harish Salve for Karnataka border dispute in SC, Ajit Pawar tells Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde, Legal News, ET LegalWorld – Legal Firms

Leader of opposition Ajit Pawar on Wednesday asked chief minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to engage the services of Nagpur-based lawyer Harish Salve to represent Maharashtra in the litigation before the Supreme Court on the Maharashtra-Karnataka boundary dispute.

“Salve belongs to Maharashtra, and he has dealt with the case in the past too. He will be the best choice for securing justice,” Pawar said.

Pawar said in the past, when Vilasrao Deshmukh was the CM, he had stepped in to secure the appearance of Salve to protect the interests of the state in the matter. “I am told that currently, the state government has hired the services of leading lawyer Vaidyanathan. In my opinion, while the Karnataka CM is personally camping in New Delhi and has hired the services of former attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, it will be most appropriate if we engage Salve,” he said.

Pawar strongly criticized Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai for raking up new issues like claiming that villagers of Jat and Solapur had expressed their desire to merge with Karnataka. “His contention is baseless, there is absolutely no substance in it,” he said.

Ajit Pawar presided over a meeting of the Maha Vikas Aghadi on Wednesday in view of the upcoming winter session of the state legislature in Nagpur which begins on December 19. The meeting was attended by former CMs Ashok Chavan and Prithviraj Chavan, Congress legislature party leader Balasaheb Thorat, Shiv Sena’s (UBT) Aaditya Thackeray and Anil Parab, SP’s Abu Azmi and Rais Shaikh, and former ministers Eknath Khadse, Chhagan Bhujbal and Dilip Walse Patil of NCP.

Pawar said the MVA will provide a united front during the winter session and expose the Shinde-led government for its “failure on all fronts.” “We are surprised as to why the meeting of the business advisory committee, scheduled for Wednesday, was suddenly postponed to December 5 without assigning any reasons,” he noted.

He said MVA will insist on at least a three-week session. “Our emphasis will be to discuss problems of Vidarbha region as priority, because after a gap of three years, the session is being held in Nagpur. Owing to the pandemic, no session was held for three years,” he said. He said it appeared that while a plan for a two-week session had been drafted by the legislature secretariat, in all probably it could be wound up after the first week itself.