A visit by Maharashtra ministers to Belagavi district, while Supreme Court is expected to hear the border dispute, is inappropriate said Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday. While talking to the media during his visit to Belagavi, Bommai said his government had communicated the same to the Maharashtra government.
“We communicated to Maharashtra government that the visit of its ministers to Belagavi, at this juncture, is not appropriate,” he said. “The chief secretary of Karnataka has sent a fax message to her counterpart in Maharashtra that the visit of ministers won’t be appropriate in the current situation,” he added.
When asked if state government will bar the entry of these ministers, Bommai said that his government will take similar steps “as taken by the earlier state governments during such instances in the past”.
“Maharashtra government has announced a ₹2,000 crore irrigation project for Jath taluk and surrounding areas. This will help the Kannada-speaking population in those areas. The announcement has come after we raised concerns about the well-being of Kannada-speaking people in Maharashtra. The residents of Jath should get drinking water as soon as possible,” Bommai added.
Pro-Kannada organisations on Wednesday had threatened to stage protests if Maharashtra ministers Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai will be allowed entry into the state to meet pro-Maharashtra activists in Belagavi on December 3 over the decades-old border dispute.
The border dispute dates back to the 1960s after the reorganisation of states on linguistic lines. Maharashtra laid claim to Belagavi, which was part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency as it has a sizable Marathi-speaking population. It also laid claim to 80 Marathi-speaking villages which are currently part of Karnataka.
Patil and Desai have been appointed as the coordinating ministers for the border row with a mandate to coordinate with the legal team regarding the court case on the border dispute between the two states. The ministers are scheduled to meet pro-Maharashtrian organisation Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) and Belagavi block Shiva Sena at Maratha Mandir at 12pm on December 3.
Members of dozens of Kannada organisations, including both the factions of Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) and the Karnataka Navanirmana Sene (KNS), told reporters that hundreds of activists will take to streets to stop the meeting and the state government will be responsible for the aftermath incidents. Hundreds of activists will keep a watch at every entry point to the district from Maharashtra and prevent the ministers from entering, they said.
Belagavi police commissioner Boralingaiah said that no one has sought permission for the meeting yet, and added that the department has taken appropriate measures to maintain law and order in the area.
Meanwhile, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar said that the Belagavi border dispute is being raked up by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to divert people’s attention ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Shivakumar said that the border dispute is a settled issue and the ruling party keeps talking about it to cover up their failures. “Our chief minister Basavaraj Bommai is making it a big issue to hide slurs on the ruling BJP government in the state. There is a conspiracy behind this. The border dispute has been resolved already. The region within our borders is ours, the area lying in their territory is theirs. Whoever is on our side is our people,” Shivakumar said.
He said it is not appropriate for anyone belonging to any party in Maharashtra to disturb peace on the pretext of the border dispute, Shivakumar said. “We have built Suvarna Soudha in Belagavi. No one should indulge in disturbing peace,” he added.