Karnataka says won't cede an inch, to pass resolution on border

BELAGAVI: The Karnataka legislature will pass a resolution during the ongoing winter session at Belagavi, reiterating its stand on the border row with Maharashtra.
CM Basavaraj Bommai said in the assembly on Tuesday that Karnataka's borders have been drawn once and for all as per the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 and there should not be any change to it. He said not even an inch would be ceded.
"This ('no change to Karnataka borders') has been, is and will be our stand - and for ever. The same will be reiterated through a resolution by both houses of the legislature," Bommai told the assembly, intervening in a debate initiated by Congress over the border issue. The resolution is expected to be adopted immediately after Bommai replies to the debate on Wednesday.
CM Bommai took objection to Maharashtra ministers trying to enter Karnataka as and when the border issue crops up. He said: “It is not right on the part of Maharashtra ministers and politicians to forcefully enter Karnataka with an intention to create a law-and-order problem.”
The CM claimed his government has “tactfully and firmly” handled the developments surrounding the border issue over the past few days. “We warned Maharashtra ministers they would be arrested if they entered Karnataka and got our chief secretary Vandita Sharma to write to her Maharashtra counterpart objecting to their visit.
The CM’s letter will be a crucial document in the future for Karnataka to prove how Maharashtra is repeatedly trying to create law-and-order problems,” he said. Initiating the debate, opposition leader Siddaramaiah accused Maharashtra politicians of raking up the border issue time and again with mala fide and political intentions while the matter has already been settled.
He took objection to Bommai attending a meeting called by Union home minister Amit Shah last week along with Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde and agreeing to set up a panel of six ministers from both states to address issues arising from time to time.
“By making you attend the meeting, they (Maharashtra) want to establish that there is a border dispute between the two states, whereas the row is already settled. You should not have attended the meeting.”
Former minister HK Patil, who was in charge of border issues during the Congress government led by Siddaramaiah, said Shah’s statement that the border row will be decided by Supreme Court goes against Karnataka’s stand. “Our stand is that only Parliament has the jurisdiction to address border disputes.
Now that Shah has said the court will decide the issue, ‘Are you in agreement with it?’” Patil said. Bommai said Shah convened a meeting to discuss only the law-and-order situation in both states.
He denied Shah saying the court would decide the matter. “After the meeting, he (Shah) said the issue should be ‘solved constitutionally’. My government has not diluted the state’s position either before the Union government or Supreme Court. I’m the last person to do so,” he added.