Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai held a meeting with his Maharashtra counterpart Eknath Shinde on Monday, the first time since the ongoing border dispute on November 21.
The brief meeting took place after both chief ministers arrived in Gandhi Nagar for the swearing-in ceremony of Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel.
While leaving Ahmedabad, both leaders had a brief conversation at the airport lounge.
Deputy chief minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis was present during the meeting as well, said a person privy to the development.
Talking to the media, Bommai said: “Day after tomorrow (December 14), Union Home Minister Amit Shah will hold a meeting with both states.”
The announcement comes days after a delegation of parliamentarians of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (opposition coalition in Maharashtra) met Shah on Friday regarding the border dispute with Karnataka.
Bommai said that the Maharashtra delegation meeting with Shah would not make any difference and asserted that his government would not make any compromise on the issue.
The CM said that he has asked a delegation of Karnataka Members of Parliament to meet Shah regarding the border issue and that he would also be soon meeting the Union home minister to inform him about the state’s “legitimate” stand.
“Maharashtra delegation meeting the Union Home Minister will not make any difference. Maharashtra has tried this in the past too. The case is in the Supreme Court. Our legitimate case in the Supreme Court is strong. Our government will not make any compromise on the border issue,” Bommai had tweeted late on Friday night.
{{/usCountry}}“Maharashtra delegation meeting the Union Home Minister will not make any difference. Maharashtra has tried this in the past too. The case is in the Supreme Court. Our legitimate case in the Supreme Court is strong. Our government will not make any compromise on the border issue,” Bommai had tweeted late on Friday night.
{{/usCountry}}Amit Shah is likely to chair a meeting with Karnataka and Maharashtra CMs on December 14.
“I have already spoken to Amit Shah about the border issue, and he had said that he would be holding a meeting with the Chief Ministers of both states. We have already conveyed our stand and sent the required documents,” Bommai told reporters on Sunday.
The border dispute between Karnataka and that dates back to the period of Independence and the reorganisation of states on linguistic lines in 1956 tends to surface before the winter session of the Karnataka legislature, which is held in Belagavi as the city is claimed by Maharashtra.
As the winter session of the Karnataka legislature is scheduled to begin on December 19, the decades-old conflict has started to boil up once more.
Amid the ongoing border row, more villages from the Marathawada region have urged the Maharashtra government to merge their areas with Karnataka, people familiar with developments said.
This is the third set of villages demanding the merger, citing the lack of basic amenities in the neighbouring state.
After Jat in Sangli and Akkalkot in Solapur districts in south Maharashtra, ten villages in Deoni taluk in Latur district have urged the government to provide them with the basic civic amenities or else merge them into Karnataka where villagers are enjoying civic and agriculture benefits.
A memorandum was submitted to the Latur district collector on September 6 this year, in which ten villages surrounding Bomballi in Deoni tehsil had listed the civic facilities they were deprived of.
The villagers also asked to be given a separate gram panchayat status to Bomballi village and warned of boycotting all the elections, including the gram panchayat elections scheduled on December 18, if their demands are not met.
As the elections were announced to gram panchayats, 74 voters signed a memorandum and submitted it to the district collector on November 23, in which they again mentioned boycotting the elections and urged to merge them with Karnataka.