Basavaraj Bommai takes on Fadnavis over border row, stakes claim to Maharashtra's Solapur

The Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute escalated after Basavaraj Bommai accused his BJP colleague Devendra Fadnavis of giving a "provocative" statement. After Bommai revealed on Tuesday that his government was seriously considering the resolution passed by some villages in the Jat taluka of Maharashtra's Sangli district to merge with Karnataka, Fadnavis highlighted that this issue dates back to 2012. The Maharashtra Deputy CM also affirmed that not a single village in his state would be ceded to Karnataka. 

Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis stated, "We took very important decisions after our CM chaired a meeting. We decided to help people in the border areas and introduce additional schemes. That's why the Karnataka CM may have given such a statement. Not even one village in Maharashtra will go anywhere. But we will fight in the Supreme Court and try to retrieve our areas such as Belgaum and Nippani". Earlier, the Eknath Shinde-led government appointed Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai as nodal ministers to coordinate with the state’s legal team. 

In response, the Karnataka CM tweeted, "Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has made a provocative statement on the Karnataka- Maharashtra border issue and his dream will never come true. Our government is committed to protecting the country's land, water and borders. There is no question of giving up any space in the border districts of Karnataka. Our demand is that the Kannada-speaking areas of Maharashtra like Solapur and Akkalkot should join Karnataka". He also assured that the state will mount a strong legal defence in the border dispute case pending before the Supreme Court. 

Karnataka-Maharashtra border dispute

There has been a longstanding dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka over the status of predominantly Marathi-speaking regions such as Belagavi. Speaking in the Maharashtra Assembly on December 20, 2019, the then CM Uddhav Thackeray re-ignited the tensions as he referred to these areas as 'Karnataka-occupied Maharashtra'. Moreover, he accused the BJP government in Karnataka of oppressing the Marathi-speaking people. However, the then Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa dismissed the possibility of ceding territory and argued that the findings of the Mahajan Committee report should be accepted. 

He was referring to a commission formed in 1966 under Meher Chand Mahajan, a former Supreme Court judge, to look into the dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra. Maharashtra had refused to comply with the committee's report as it rejected the state's claim on Belagavi. On May 1 this year, the then Deputy CM Ajit Pawar extended his support for the merger of Marathi-speaking areas in Karnataka into Maharashtra.