Maharashtra's law minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil should resign in the wake of adverse rulings in the 'Best-of-Five' and James Laine case, Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray said on Sunday in Mumbai.
"In every case, the state is getting hammered by the court. I have begun to feel that government wants the admission imbroglio to continue," Thackeray said at a press conference ahead of the monsoon session of the Assembly.
The Bombay High Court recently quashed Maharashtra government's Best-of-Five scheme for admission to Std 11th. The appeal filed by the state is pending in the Supreme Court and admissions are yet to begin.
Talking about Belgaum issue -- where the centre said in an affidavit in the apex court that Maharashtra's claim over the border area (at present in Karnataka) was not tenable -- Thackeray said "centre was never on Maharashta's side" in such disputes.
"Nehru did not want to give Mumbai to Maharashtra when the state was formed," he said, adding that "but now there is no C D Deshmukh in the cabinet...for the present-day (Maharashtrian) ministers, cricket is more important," he said, without naming Sharad Pawar.
C D Deshmukh, former union finance minister, had resigned in the 1950s over the state formation issue.
Thackeray also said he was not sure whether state would put up its case about the Belgaum issue properly in the Supreme Court.
When asked why the Belgaum issue could not be resolved when there was Sena-BJP government in the state and NDA government at the centre, Uddhav said, "we did try...we put pressure on (Prime Minister) Atal Bihari Vajpayee."
Regarding lifting of the ban on James Laine's controversial book on Shivaji by the Supreme Court, Thackeray said that Shiv Sena would not allow the book to be sold in the state. PTI
