"India, Pak, Bangladesh should be merged": NCP leader to BJP

MUMBAI: Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik on Sunday said that his party - the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) - will welcome the BJP's move "if it creates one country by merging India, Pakistan and Bangladesh".

"The way Devendra ji has said that time will come Karachi will be the part of India. We have been saying that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh should be merged. If the Berlin wall can be demolished then why not India, Pakistan and Bangladesh can come together? If BJP wishes to merge these three countries and make a single country, we will welcome it definitely," Mr Malik told ANI, when asked comment on the former Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis's remark on Karachi.

Mr Malik said that the NCP wants to contest the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections along with Shiv Sena and Congress which are part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra.

"It is still 15 months left for the BMC election. Every party has the right to work for their party, and every party is doing so. We are also strengthening our party. We would want that those who are running the government all three parties should contest polls together," he said.

The Cabinet Minister also ruled out any possibility of lockdown in Maharashtra saying that there is no need for it.

"Our Aarogya secretariat has sent an advisory to every district that we have to be prepared in the view of the second wave of COVID-19. We have been successful in containing coronavirus. Cases in some states are increasing and they have imposed restrictions. This is not the condition in Maharashtra. There is no such type of situation in Maharashtra that we need to impose lockdown," he said.