Border dispute: Pro-Kannada groups threaten stir alleging inaction by govt
“Though the Border Protection Committees were not re-established, the legal team is being assisted and provided all the required details. The committees will be soon re-formed with experts,” Karnataka’s minister for water resources and Belagavi district in-charge Govind Karjol said.
Pro-Kannada organisations in Karnataka’s Belagavi district are reportedly mobilising support to carry out agitations against the “inaction” by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to take measures to resolve the decades old border dispute with Maharashtra.
Convener of the Belagavi Kannada Organisations’ Action Committee,Ashok Chandaragi, on Friday accused the state government of “not nominating members to the Border Protection Committee after 2018 which was last headed by HK Patil under the Siddaramaiah-led Congress rule.”
The Border Protection Committee was formed in 2004 by late chief minister N Dharam Singh. At that time, the committee was named as Border Legal Advisory Committee and was headed by Supreme Court advocate ,late HB Datar as chairman.
“The state government has taken all-party delegations to Delhi over issues like Krishna, Carvery, Mahadayi, Mekedatu among others but is not serious about the border dispute,” he said.
The statements comes a week after the Supreme Court heard a border dispute case involving Karnataka and Maharashtra where in the latter has reiterated their claim to over 865 regions that come under the southern state regions like Belagavi, Bidar, Balki, Nippani and Karwar.
These parts were earlier with the Bombay presidency and were merged with Karnataka during the reorganisation exercise of the state in 1956.
The apex court, last Tuesday, adjourned the hearing of the case between Maharashtra, Karnataka and the Union government, to November 23.
Belagavi and several other parts of North-western Karnataka have a significant number of Marathi speakers who have been fighting to be rejoined with their ‘parent-state’ which has also become the biggest platform for the region’s politics.
“Though the Border Protection Committees were not re-established, the legal team is being assisted and provided all the required details. The committees will be soon re-formed with experts,” Karnataka’s minister for water resources and Belagavi district in-charge Govind Karjol said.
“The people living in the border areas need not to be worried about the case. We may not have reconstituted the committee but we are providing all the documents to the legal team to help prove that Belagavi and other places are part and parcel of Karnataka,” the minister said.
The Maharashtra government had moved to Supreme Court in 2004.
Karnataka, one of the two respondents in the case, has appealed to the Supreme Court to dismiss Maharashtra’s petition as the border disputes between the states does not come under its limit.
According to the Karnataka government, “The solution of border disputes between the states will not come under its (Supreme Court) jurisdiction. Only the Lok Sabha can deal with such matters”. Karnataka has placed on record reference to Article 3 of the Constitution that all border issues would be resolved by the Parliament. On the other hand, Maharashtra has appealed under Article 131 of the Constitution that the decision of the Union government cannot be accepted and the Apex Court has authority to inquire into the case.
“No meetings were held in the last three years and the committee has no chairman as the previous chief KL Manjunath died six months ago. Since no meetings have been called, how does the question of advising, giving details, proofs to the legal team at Supreme Court arise? The government is not showing any interest in this matter,” said senior advocate and member of the legal advisory committee SM Kulkarni.
