Belgaum on the boil over new status

Belgaum: Belgaum is tense after the townships' Municipal Corporation passed a resolution to break away from Karnataka and join Maharashtra.

The resolution stated that Belgaum should be merged with the Karwar, Nippani and Khanapur districts in Maharashtra.

The controversial resolution was passed on Tuesday after Vijay More the Mayor of Belgaum was meted out humiliating treatment in Bangalore.

Belgaum, with an 80 per cent Marathi-speaking population, has been a bone of contention between the two states since the mid 1950s.

When India's states were reconstituted on the basis of languages in 1956, Belgaum, then part of Bombay Presidency, was merged with Karnataka.

Since then the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti or MES, which was in power in Belgaum city council, has been fighting for merger with Maharashtra.

The dispute, which is still pending in the Supreme Court, had nearly lost its intensity when Karnataka demanded the total implementation of the Mahajan Commission report under which Belgaum would stay with Karnataka was fired again after More passed the resolution.

On Monday, the Karnataka government dissolved the corporation and ousted Mayor Vijay More, who led the controversial resolution.

The government stated that the Corporation was being dissolved because it was not competent enough.

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However More stated that the resolution was the reason for the dissolution.

He said he did not repent his decision at all.

"How long can we deny the aspirations of the 80 per cent Marathi-speaking people of Belgaum?"

Predictably, the Shiv Sena has rushed to the civic body?s aid issuing a statement that the "dissolution of the Belgaum Municipal Corporation is a murder of democracy."

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has demanded that the Corporation be reinstated.

In a letter sent to his Karnataka counterpart, he said, "It is not alright to dismiss a Municipal Corporation which has been elected in a democractic manner."

The Maharashtra Congress feels that the Karnataka and Maharashtra governments should take a decision based on common consensus.

Now, the district administration has taken charge of the corporation and security has been beefed up in Marathi-majority areas.

The dissolution of the Belgaum Municipal Corporation has helped contain the tension temporarily.

However if Karnataka is serious about a long-term solution, it will have to find out why such a large section of the people feel alienated in the first place.

(With inputs from PTI)