Maha-K'taka border row: Coordinating ministers to visit Belgaum on Dec 3, hold talks

Maharashtra ministers Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai will meet activists of the Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti in Belgaum on December 3 and hold talks with them on the decades-old border dispute with Karnataka.

Patil and Desai have been appointed as the 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.

Taking to Twitter, Patil 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,” the minister tweeted with a letter from the Samiti seeking a meeting with him and Desai.

As per a recent government resolution, the ministers will be responsible for coordination with the Samiti that roots for merging of the Marathi-speaking areas in Karnataka with the state.

Patil and Desai will also look into the problems faced by residents of 865 villages in Karnataka over which the Maharashtra government has staked its claim in this decades old issue, the resolution said.

Patil is a senior state BJP leader, while Desai 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.