As skirmishes over the Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute continued for the second consecutive day on Wednesday, the Opposition Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) upped the ante, by accusing the Centre of indirectly supporting the violence in the border city of the southern state and demanding that Belagavi and the surrounding Marathi-speaking areas be declared as a “Union Territory”. (UT).
With no let up in the violence in the two states, at least four buses were defaced by the the Shiv Sena (UBT) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists, while Kannada-speaking activists hurled stones at vehicles entering Karnataka from the Maharashtra side near a toll booth at Hirebaugwadi in Belagavi district
A front named as MVA morcha floated by the Opposition Maha Vikas Agadi (MVA) on Wednesday announced that it would stage a massive protest at Kolhapur in western Maharashtra against the Karnataka government for “its efforts to precipitate” the situation in the border areas. The MVA forum has invited Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MVS), an outfit fighting for the Marathi-speaking people in Karnataka, for the protest.
In a related development, the services of as many as 475 state transport bus services operating between Karnataka and Maharashtra have been suspended. While 330 daily bus services operating between various and cities and towns of Maharashtra like Mumbai, Kolhapur, Ratnagiri, Sangli and Satara have been suspended, while 145 daily services operating between Karnataka and Maharashtra have been stopped following the incident of violence in Belgavi on Tuesday.
As the political stand-off between the two states intensified, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP and chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut claimed that the incidents of violence could not have taken place in Belagavi without New Delhi’s support and demanded that Belagavi and surrounding Marathi-speaking areas along the Karnataka-Maharashtra border be declared as a Union Territory.
"Workers of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti have been arrested. The game of ending Marathi self-esteem by breaking its backbone has started. The attacks in Belagavi are part of the same conspiracy. Get up Marathas get up!" Raut tweeted.
Interacting with the media later in the day, Raut charged that the Eknath Shinde government was “impotent” and it had failed to handle the issues relating to the border row firmly. "If Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has guts, he should demand the disputed areas be declared as a union territory immediately," he said.