Mumbai: Amid raging controversy over the Karnataka Chief Minister Mr Basavaraj Bommai laying claim over 40 villages in Jat taluka in Sangli district and also on Solapur and Akkalkot cities, two ministers from the Shinde Fadnavis government Mr Chandrakant Patil and Mr Shambhuraj Desai will visit Belgaum on December 3 to meet activists of the Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti and hold talks with them on the decades-old border dispute with Karnataka.
Patil, who is the minister of higher and technical education, in a tweet said, ‘’There was a demand from the Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti to hold discussions on the border issue. Accordingly, coordinating minister Shamburaj Desai and I will visit Belgaum on December 3 and hold discussions. Let’s meet up. Discussions surely will lead to a way.’’ He also uploaded a letter from the Samiti seeking a meeting with him and Desai.
Patil and Desai, who have been inducted in the newly constituted high power committee on the long pending Maharashtra Karnataka border dispute, have been appointed as coordinating ministers for the border row with a mandate to coordinate with the legal team regarding the court case on the border dispute between the two states.
Patil is a senior state BJP leader, while Desai, who is the minister of excise, is a member of the Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena faction of the Shiv Sena. Both hail from western Maharashtra.
Maharashtra, since its inception in 1960, has been entangled in a dispute with Karnataka over the status of Belgaum (also called Belagavi) district and 80 other Marathi speaking villages, which are in the control of the southern state.
At the recently held meeting of the newly reconstituted high power committee, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had announced that the special cell dealing with border issues would be strengthened so that the benefits of the schemes of the Maharashtra government can be effectively given to the people in the border areas. Further, the state government would provide benefits under the Chief Minister’s Charitable Endowment Fund to the villages from border areas and they will also get benefits under the state insurance scheme titled Mahatma Jotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana.
‘’The state government is fully behind the brothers of the border areas regarding the Maharashtra Karnataka border issue. A united effort is being made for the legal battle in this regard and senior lawyer Vaidyanathan has been appointed for this,’’ said Shinde.
Already Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis have announced that no a single village will go to Karnataka while opposition parties have slammed the Karnataka CM for stoking a controversy especially when the border issue is pending in the Supreme Court.
