The move comes amid a border row over Belagavi between Karnataka and Maharashtra, which flares up from time to time.
Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah. (X)
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday, 17 January, said Maharashtra government officials had been told not to enter the state.
The move came amid reports that the Maharashtra government officials had decided to implement their state’s health insurance scheme in 865 Marathi-dominated Karnataka villages bordering Maharashtra.
“Our chief secretary has spoken (to his Maharashtra counterpart) asking them (government officials) not to enter Karnataka,” Siddaramaiah told reporters in Bengaluru before leaving for the inauguration of Sainik School in Bailahongala Taluk in the Belagavi district.
The move comes amid a border row over Belagavi between Karnataka and Maharashtra, which flares up from time to time.
The row dates back to 1957 when states were reorganised on linguistic lines.
Maharashtra laid claim to Belagavi, which was part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency, as it has a sizeable Marathi-speaking population.
It also staked claim to over 800 Marathi-speaking villages which are currently a part of Karnataka.
Karnataka maintains that the demarcation done on linguistic lines as per the States Reorganisation Act and the 1967 Mahajan Commission Report is final.
In an assertion about Belagavi being an integral part of the state, Karnataka built the “Suvarna Vidhana Soudha” there, modelled on the Vidhana Soudha, the seat of the state Legislature and Secretariat in Bengaluru.
On 1 November last year, members of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) in Belagavi defied prohibitory orders clamped under CrPC Section 144 and took out rallies demanding the merger of the Karwar, Belagavi, and Bidar districts of Karnataka with Maharashtra.
The MES workers, attired in black and sporting Gandhi caps, observed a “black day”, demanding the merger.
On 31 October, the district administration denied the MES permission to observe the “black day” when the state celebrated the Rajyotsava or the Karnataka Formation Day.
Based on a report by the Belagavi City Police Commissioner SN Siddaramappa, Deputy Commissioner Nitesh Patil issued an order barring three Maharashtra’s ministers and a Shiv Sena MP from entering Belagavi, reasoning that their participating in the MES event might affect law and order in the region.
(With PTI inputs)
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