Legal battle and politics keeps the pot boiling on Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute

The Karnataka-Maharashtra border dispute is a perennial issue that surfaces almost every year, creating an atmosphere of sharp rhetoric and sub-nationalism on both sides.

With no signs of the decades-old issue getting resolved outside the court, there is a feeling in many quarters it's all politics that keeps the pot boling.

According to a report of PTI, If there is no other trigger, the dispute at least crops up during December each year, when the border district of Belagavi, which Maharashtra stakes claims on, hosts the winter session of Karnataka legislature at the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha.

This time, the dispute has come to the forefront slightly earlier, with the issue being raked up ahead of hearing on the border issue in the Supreme Court, on a suit filed by Maharashtra. Some political observers believe that the upcoming Assembly polls in Karnataka and the political dynamics in Maharashtra have added an extra twist to it this time.

Parallel to the legislature session, the ‘Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti’ (MES), which has been fighting in the border areas of Belagavi for the merger of 800-odd villages with Maharashtra, holds ‘Marathi Mahamelava’, a show of strength in the border city.

Along with the hearing in the Supreme Court, the issue also flared up this time with Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai asserting that the Karnataka government was “seriously” laying claim to Jath taluk in Maharashtra, evoking a strong response. He subsequently also claimed that Solapur and Akkalkot regions in Maharashtra belonged to Karnataka.

On his part, BJP state General Secretary N Ravi Kumar feels that there won’t be any political or electoral implications of the border issue.

Maharashtra often raises the border issue for their internal politics, but their demand is impractical. There is no question of giving away even an inch of land people on the ground don’t want such issues and controversies, they need peace and development, which we are committed to. Border issue has more or less become a perennial one now, he said.