Karnataka-Maharashtra Border Row: Belagavi Witness Unrest, Hundreds Denied Entry At Border
Amid growing tension at the Karnataka-Maharashtra border which was to be the venue for massive protests were planned today as the last winter session of the BS Bommai government has started in the state of Karnataka, many of the NCP and Shiv Sena leaders were taken into preventive custody. NCP's Hasan Mushrif, and Shiv Sena's Kolhapur district president Vijay Devane, have been detained by the police forces today as they were trying to enter Karnataka's Belagavi, the epicentre of the grand old border dispute where the 10-day winter session of the Karnataka Assembly was also taking place. This is the present government of the state's last winter session before it witnesses elections last year.
As per report, much more than 300 members of Shiv Sena, Congress, and NCP were denied entry at the border and sent back by Karnataka, also some were detained by the police.
Activists of Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MMES), an organisation which has been voicing the issue for over five decades, have planned huge protests ahead of the commencement of the winter session of the Karnataka Assembly.
Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole on the other hand has blamed the dispute on the central government, claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was "dividing" India.
"The border issue is happening because of the central government. PM Modi wants to divide Maharashtra. Despite the meeting between both Chief Ministers and Home Minister Amit Shah, why are leaders not allowed to go there? This shows that the central government is behind this issue," he said.
However, the CMs of both Karnataka and Maharashtra have boiled down to the conclusion that neither will press their claims in the decades-old state border dispute till the Supreme Court decides on the matter, Union Home Minister Amit Shah concluded after a meeting with the two leaders.
However, Maharashtra Chief Minister CM Eknath Shinde today claimed the issue is of "Maharashtra's pride" and that the state has a strong stand on the matter.
The Chief minister of Maharashtra also said that, "Home Minister himself informed the media about the issue. The Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti is protesting today, there should not be any politics on this issue. There are several other issues over which we can do politics."
Mr Shinde also claimed that the police have given him information about the villagers who are keen to join Karnataka, and "who are behind them"
"We are with our people and will provide anything required. We even told BS Bommai that whatever you are tweeting isn't right, he said that that isn't his Twitter handle," Maharashta CM added.
Maharashtra has always been upset over the inclusion of Marathi-speaking areas including the disputed region of Belgavi, which was part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency -- in Karnataka as the states were being re-organised on linguistic lines. The Maharashtra government also claimed all those 814 Marathi-speaking villages which are currently part of Karnataka.
Karnataka however, stays put on demarcation is final and there can be no change.
Maharashtra MP Dhairyasheel Sambhajirao Mane, who has been appointed as the chief of the Karnataka-Maharashtra border dispute expert committee, was also expected to visit Belagavi today, although the district administration has not allowed his entry.
Dhairyasheel Sambhajirao Mane also planned to take part in the event organised by the MMES organisation, but the police argued that it is possible that he might that he may deliver inflammatory speeches, which would further increase the conflict and create a law and order problem, eventually leading to damage of public property.
Reportedly, more than 61 organisations had also asked for permission to hold protests during the Assembly session, forcing heavy deployment of police in the area.
More than 4,000 police personnel including six Superintendents of Police, 11 additional Superintendents, 43 deputy Superintendents, 95 police inspectors, and 241 police sub-inspectors have also been deployed in Belagavi.
Over the last weeks, while trucks from Maharashtra were being attacked in Karnataka buses from the southern state have been defaced by workers of the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena.
