Maharashtra ministers will visit border areas of Karnataka after winter session: Shambhuraj Desai

Shambhuraj Desai. File Pic

Maharashtra ministers Chandrakant Patil, Shambhuraj Desai, and MP Dhairyahseel Mane will visit the border areas of Karnataka and interact with Marathi-speaking people there after the winter session of the state legislature concludes.

Talking to reporters here on Monday, Desai said they could not visit the border areas as the session is currently underway in Nagpur.

After the end of the Assembly session, we three (Desai himself, Mane and Patil) will go and meet the people in the border areas and hold discussions, he said in Nagpur.

Patil and Shambhuraj Desai, appointed for coordinating Maharashtra's border dispute with Karnataka, were scheduled to visit Belagavi on December 6 but the visit didn't materialise amid tension in the border areas.

They were also supposed to meet activists of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti at Belagavi on December 3 and hold talks with them on the long-pending dispute.

Mane is also a part of the coordinating panel.

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Earlier in the day, opposition leader Ajit Pawar told reporters in the Vidhan Bhavan complex here that there was a meeting of MES on Monday wherein some leaders and other people from Maharashtra were stopped by the Karnataka government.

"Shiv Sena MP Dhairyasheel Mane was not allowed to enter Belagavi. We condemn this incident," the Nationalist Congress Party leader had said.

The MES has been demanding the merger of Belagavi with Maharashtra claiming the district has a substantial Marathi population.

Amid the simmering border row between Maharashtra and Karnataka, both ruled by BJP, Union Home Minister Amit Shah convened a meeting of the chief ministers and home ministers of both states earlier this month.

While Desai and Mane belonged to the Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena faction led by CM Shinde, Patil is a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. All three hail from western Maharashtra.

Meanwhile, Desai lauded the Centre for taking a positive step in resolving the border dispute with Karnataka.

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