The Karnataka Assembly on Thursday passed a resolution to protect the state’s interests amid the ongoing border row with Maharashtra, PTI reported.
The resolution was moved by Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and was adopted by a voice vote.
“There is no compromise on the matters relating to Karnataka’s land, water, language and Kannadiga’s interest,” the resolution read, according to PTI. “The feelings of Karnataka’s people and members [of Assembly] is one of this subject, and if it is affected, we are all committed to unitedly take constitutional and legal measures to protect the interest of the state.”
The resolution came amid a flare-up between Maharashtra and Karnataka over a decades-old border dispute.
The dispute pertains to Maharashtra’s demand since its creation on May 1, 1960, that 865 villages, including Belgaum (now Belagavi), Karwar and Nippani, that are currently in Karnataka, should be merged with it. Karnataka, however, claims the demarcation that was carried out on linguistic lines in 1956 is final. The case is pending before the Supreme Court.
Over the last few weeks, tensions flared up after activists from the Karnataka Rakshana Vedika, a Kannada nationalist group, allegedly attacked buses and lorries from Maharashtra near Belagavi by pelting stones. In retaliation to the attack on vehicles registered in Maharashtra, workers from former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s faction of the Shiv Sena also defaced Karnataka’s state transport buses in Pune.
On December 14, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Karnataka and Maharashtra governments will not make any claim in the border dispute between them until the Supreme Court gives its verdict in the case.
On Thursday, Bommai, while replying to the debate on the issue in the House, said that the people of Karnataka will not let go of even an inch of the state’s land.
“We will do everything to protect it [Karnataka’s land], we will take all the measures required in this direction,” he said, according to PTI.
Bommai also condemned the “conduct” of the political leaders of Maharashtra warning of legal action.
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