Belagavi row: Karnataka, Maha CMs speak on phone, agree to maintain peace
A Maharashtra ministerial delegation's proposed visit to Belagavi in Karnataka did not materialise on Tuesday, December 6, amid simmering tension over the boundary row, while transport corporation MSRTC suspended bus services to the southern state citing a police advisory. Despite the raging border dispute between the two states, Karnataka and Maharashtra Chief Ministers spoke to each other over the phone on Tuesday night and agreed that there should be peace and law and order should be maintained on both sides.
In a related development, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis spoke to Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai over stone pelting on vehicles from Maharashtra entering the adjoining state and said he will also take up the matter with the union government. Maharashtra ministers Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai, appointed for coordinating the state's border dispute with Karnataka, were slated to visit Belagavi district earlier in the day, but the tour did not materialise, leading to an angry reaction from Opposition parties who dubbed them as cowards.
Karnataka Chief Minister Bommai tweeted about his conversation with his Maharashtra counterpart Shinde but asserted there was no change in his state's stand as far as the border issue is concerned. "Maharashtra Chief Minister Shri Eknath Shinde had a telephonic discussion with me, we both agreed that there should be peace and law and order to be maintained in both the states," Bommai said in the tweet. Noting that there are harmonious relations between the people of both states, he said, "However there is no change in our stand as far as the Karnataka border is concerned. And the legal battle will be pursued in the Supreme Court."
The two ministers were scheduled to meet activists of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) at Karnataka’s Belagavi and hold talks with them on the decades-old border issue. MES is an organisation fighting for the merger of Belagavi and some other border areas with Maharashtra.
The development came a day after Bommai said he will ask his Maharashtra counterpart Eknath Shinde not to depute his cabinet colleagues, Patil and Desai, to Belagavi as planned citing law and order, even as prohibitory orders were clamped in the border district ahead of the proposed visit of the delegation. Maharashtra State Transport Corporation (MSRTC) on Tuesday afternoon suspended bus services to Karnataka citing a police advisory, a top official said. MSRTC Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Shekhar Channe told PTI the decision was taken considering the safety of passengers travelling to Karnataka and to avoid damage to their property.
The border issue dates back to 1957 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 814 Marathi-speaking villages which are currently part of the southern state. Karnataka, however, considers the demarcation done on linguistic lines as per the States Reorganisation Act and the 1967 Mahajan Commission Report as final.