Karnataka Maharashtra Border Dispute: BSY lashes out at Thackeray

Bengaluru, Jan 18: Protests have broken out at the Belgavi border after the Maharashtra government said it wants the Marathi speaking land back from Karnataka.

Karnataka Chief Minister, B S Yediyurappa condemned the statements in this regard and said that the demand is against the Constitution of India.

Karnataka Minister S Suresh Kumar on Sunday termed as "sheer political one upmanship," Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray''s statement raking up the border issue between the two states and advised him to concentrate on preventing COVID and developmental activities.

The state''s Primary and Secondary Education Minister said that the border issue was already well settled. "The Chief Minister of Maharashtra should concentrate on preventing COVID, on developmental activities and other things. He need not go back to things already well settled. I think it is only to whip up passions and whipping up passions will not pay dividends these days," Kumar told PTI.

Noting that people now want reforms and development, he said, Thackeray should be advised to concentrate on governance and relationship with his alliance partners. "....it (border issue) is a well settled thing, nobody can reopen this issue. This is sheer political one-upmanship," he added.

Thackeray earlier on Sunday had said that his government is committed towards incorporating into the state the areas of Karnataka where Marathi-speaking people are in majority.

"Bringing Karnataka-occupied Marathi-speaking and cultural areas in Maharashtra will be the true tribute to those who accepted martyrdom in the boundary battle. We are united and committed towards it. Respects to the martyrs with this promise," the Maharashtra CMO tweeted. Maharashtra claims Belagavi and some other areas, which was part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency but currently in Karnataka, on linguistic grounds, contending that the majority of population in these areas is Marathi-speaking.

Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti, a regional organisation fighting for the merger of Belagavi and some other border areas with Maharashtra, observes January 17 as ''martyrs'' day'' for those who laid down their lives for the cause in 1956. On its part, as an assertion that Belagavi is an integral part of the state, Karnataka has built the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha, modelled on the Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat in Bengaluru, where the legislature session is held once a year.