Maharashtra-Karnataka bus halted as Belgaum dispute flares up
The case is pending before the Supreme Court since many years.
Mumbai: Shiv Sena activists burnt an effigy of Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa and stopped the screening of a Kannada movie in Kolhapur on Sunday as the dispute over Belgaum flared up once again.
Bus services from Kolhapur district in Maharashtra to Karnataka have been suspended against the backdrop of the ongoing border dispute between the two states over Belgaum, a police official said on Sunday. Maharashtra claims Belgaum, part of the erstwhile Bombay presidency, but currently, a district of Karnataka, on linguistic grounds. The case is pending before the Supreme Court since many years.
The decades-old dispute over Belgaum escalated after certain remarks by a Kannada organisation against the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), which has been fighting for the merger of Marathi-speaking villages of Karnataka into the western state. According to a senior official, the state transport bus services from Kolhapur to Karnataka were suspended from Saturday midnight as a precautionary measure. Various Kannada organisations staged a protest in Belgaum on Saturday by burning the effigy of Mr Thackeray. In retaliation, the Shiv Sena held a rally in Kolhapur city on Sunday. Some Sena activists burnt the effigy of Yediyurappa at the central bus stand and stopped screening of a Kannada movie at Apsara Talkies. The activists also blackened billboards,having Kannada text, of some shopkeepers in the Gandhinagar area.