Tensions flared up on the Maharashtra-Karnataka border on Monday with police blocking hundreds of protesters from entering Karnataka and attending a planned event in Belagavi, which has become the focal point of the interstate dispute.
Around 500 workers of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) tried to barge into Karnataka to attend the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti ‘s (MES) Mahamelava at Belagavi but were detained by Maharashtra police at Koganolli checkpoint border on Pune-Bengaluru national highway. Separately, Karnataka police clamped prohibitory orders in Belagavi, detained protesters, and foiled the planned event by MES, which is leading the demand to merge Marathi-speaking areas in Karnataka with Maharashtra.
The developments came days after Union home minister Amit Shah announced a six-member ministerial team, comprising three ministers each from Maharashtra and Karnataka, will sit together to discuss the festering interstate border issue. Shah had met Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai, Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, and Karnataka home minister Araga Jnanendra in Delhi to discuss the issue.
In Maharashtra, Shinde appealed for calm and said political parties should not to behave in a way that would hurt Marathi-speaking people in border areas.
“We should stand by the people residing in border areas, back their struggle and act in a way that doesn’t hurt them,” he said in the assembly, adding that the state government had told the Centre that this issue was related to the self-respect of Maharashtra. “We said vehicles from Maharashtra are vandalised and attacked. This is not in sync with law and order and democracy. Such things should not happen because there could be a reaction to an action,” the CM added.
Leader of Opposition Ajit Pawar said Shiv Sena MP Dhairyasheel Mane (of the Shinde faction) was stopped from entering Belagavi. “When it was decided before Amit Shah ji that they (people) will not be stopped, how can a district collector stop the MP (Mane) from entering there. We should not tolerate this high handedness,” he added.
Karnataka is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) while in Maharashtra, the BJP is the senior partner in the ruling coalition. The six-decade-old border dispute between two states recently flared up after Bommai said that his government was considering laying claim on 40 Kannada-speaking villages from Jat Tehsil in Maharashtra’s Sangli district. Earlier, violence erupted after vehicles from both states were attacked and damaged in Belagavi and Pune. Since its creation on May 1, 1960, Maharashtra has claimed that 865 villages, including Belgaum (now Belagavi), Karwar and Nippani, should be merged into Maharashtra.
Members of several pro-Marathi organisations had planned massive protests ahead of the winter session of the Karnataka assembly in Belagavi.
“The Maharashtra police blocked protesters on the river bridge, about 200 meters from Koganolli checkpoint to avoid the attempt to enter Karnataka. Later they allowed them to protest on the bridge for about half an hour, then detained and taken away in buses to the outskirts of Kolhapur,” said a senior Karnataka police officer, requesting anonymity.
Earlier in the day, Karnataka Police detained around 25 MES workers who attempted to go to the MES protest venue.
A group of former women corporators wearing saffron colour sarees arrived at the spot and started shouting pro-Maharashtra slogans. Police, however, told them that permission for the protest was cancelled. “The permission was denied as there would be law and order problems not only in Belagavi but also in the state as well created adverse effects on the legislative session commenced here from Monday,” said additional director general of police (law and order) Alok Kumar.
