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HomeIndiaThere’s a 50-yr-old dispute behind Uddhav calling Belagavi ‘Karnataka occupied Maharashtra’

There’s a 50-yr-old dispute behind Uddhav calling Belagavi ‘Karnataka occupied Maharashtra’

Belagavi in Karnataka has a sizeable Marathi-speaking population and and has been at the heart of a five-decade-old border row between the state and Maharashtra.

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Bengaluru: On 20 December, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray raked up a nearly 50-year-old border dispute with neighbouring Karnataka by calling the district of Belagavi (formerly Belgaum) “Karnataka occupied Maharashtra”.

The chief minister had set the tone earlier, when, on 7 December, he appointed ministers Chhagan Bhujbal and Eknath Shinde as co-coordinators to ensure that the case related to the boundary dispute is expedited.

The response to his remarks were immediate in Karnataka, with the state Kannada and Culture Minister C.T. Ravi saying Thackeray “should be ashamed for making such statements just for political reasons”. 

It also riled pro-Kannada groups that took to the streets.   

Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa waded into the row, asserting that “not an inch of Belagavi will be given to Maharashtra”. 

Amid tit-for-tat protests in Maharashtra, the matter has further escalated with Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi Wednesday warning that the state government would not tolerate any trouble to Kannadigas in Maharashtra over the issue.

The row, however, is a five-decade-old one with both sides raking it up intermittently in order to instigate each other for political mileage.    


Also read: Why women of Karnataka’s Kodagu are busy learning how to use a rifle 


The border issue

The district of Belagavi in Karnataka, which borders Maharashtra’s Kolhapur, has a sizeable Marathi-speaking population and was part of the Bombay Presidency. 

According to the State Re-organisation Act of 1956, Belagavi was handed over to the Mysore state, which was renamed as present day Karnataka in 1973. 

Once the decision had been made, Senapati Bapat, a leader from Maharashtra sat on a hunger strike seeking a commission be formed to resolve the dispute. 

The central government constituted the Mahajan Committee in 1966 to assess the situation. Representatives from both sides, Maharashtra and the then Mysore state, were part of the committee. 

In 1967, the committee recommended that 300 villages in Karwar, Haliyal and Suparna talukas of Karnataka be given to Maharashtra but left Belagavi with the southern state. It also recommended that Sholapur in Maharashtra and Kasargod in Kerala be handed over to the then Mysore state. But Maharashtra objected to the report terming it “illogical and biased”. 

In 2006, the then Congress-led UPA government submitted in the Supreme Court that the issue should be resolved through mutual negotiation and that linguistic criterion should not be considered as it may create more practical problems. 

In 2007, Maharashtra once again moved the Supreme Court playing up the linguistic aspect, claiming that Marathi speaking people in Karnataka were being “sidelined” and “threatened”. It also demanded that 814 villages in Belagavi, Karwar, Bidar and Gulbarga districts in Karnataka, which have a significant Marathi-speaking population, be handed over to Maharashtra. The case is still being heard by the Supreme Court.

But Karnataka too has made efforts to reiterate its claim over Belagavi. The state government built an assembly building, the Suvarna Vidhan Soudha, in the city and now holds its winter session there each year.   

On 14 October, 2014, then Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah renamed Belgaum as Belagavi along with 12 other cities, which was seen as an effort by the state to cut Belagavi’s historic roots to Marathi culture.  


Also read: Yediyurappa wants to get rid of his deputy CMs because everyone in BJP wants to be one 


Political mileage 

The issue has been fraught with political implications. Even before Belagavi, then Belgaum, was handed over to the Mysore state, a political platform, the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), was formed in 1948 to oppose the merger. 

The platform then began contesting elections as a party and in its over 70-year history has focused on merging Belagavi, Karwar, Bidar and other Marathi-speaking areas in Karnataka with Maharashtra. 

Its influence, however, has waned over the years. In the 1952 and 1957 assembly elections, the MES won all the seats in Belagavi district. 

In the 1994 assembly polls, the MES won five in Belagavi. But in the 2008 and 2018 assembly polls, however, the MES was left without a single seat.   

Maratha leaders have fared better in civic body elections. Since 1999, Belagavi has had only five ‘Kannada’ Mayors, with the rest being representatives of various Marathi groups.

With the issue vitiating the atmosphere again, both sides in Belagavi have dug their heels in. 

“If Maharashtra wants to politicise the situation then let them withdraw the case they have filed in the SC. They can’t have both — fight a legal case and use it as a political platform,”  said Ashok Chandargi , president, Belagavi District Kannada Organisations Action Committee.

“Uddhav Thackeray should know better than anybody else that if they do this, it leads to contempt of court,” he added.   

“Marathi organisations do not have much control in Belagavi. They have not won a single assembly election for the past two decades which clearly shows that their control is waning,” Chandargi said.

Such has been the acrimony in the region that in November 2005, the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, a pro-Kannada organisation smeared black paint on then mayor Vijay More’s face in the wake of the Belgaum City Corporation (BCC) passing a resolution to merge the district with Maharashtra. 

Mayor More, once with the MES but now a full-time social worker, says the issue can be resolved only if chief ministers of both states discuss the issue and reach an amicable solution. 

“Just like the SC delivered a balanced verdict on the age-old Ayodhya issue and resolved the dispute, in a similar way we should wait for the SC to pass a judgment on the border issue,” More told ThePrint over phone from Belagavi.  


Also read: Uddhav Thackeray, once a critic of dynastic politics, now has 22 dynasts in his cabinet 


 

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1 COMMENT

  1. States Reorganisation Commission headed by Shri Fazal Ali used Pataskar Formula for deciding borders of all the states except in the case of the then Bombay State. This was the root cause of this dispute. When Haryana was created out of Punjab, Justice Matthew Commission relied on Pataskar Formula. Theefore, Pataskar Formula should be adopted to resolve this dispute. Those areas which cannot be allotted to either Maharashtra or Karnataka on the basis of Pataskar Formula should be made into a Union Territory.

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