Mumbai: As his 48-hour ultimatum to the Karnataka government and the Centre drew to a close on Thursday, Sharad Pawar announced that he had withdrawn his decision to visit Maharashtra’s neighbouring state, where trucks from Maharashtra were attacked by a local group called the ‘Karnataka Rakshana Vedike’ on Tuesday.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo had declared that he would visit Belgavi if the situation was not brought under control in the following 24 to 48 hours. The statement was made after two Maharashtra ministers—Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai—postponed their Tuesday visit to Belgavi, following objections by the Karnataka government.
“I personally believe that things have calmed down,” Pawar said, while addressing a meeting of his party leaders on Thursday. “Activists from the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti have informed me that the police security outside their homes has been removed; the situation there is no more tense and vehicles from Maharashtra are not being stopped. If all this is happening, then Maharashtra will not take any step which will increase animosity between the two states.”
The NCP chief, however, added that they would keep an eye on the developments in Karnataka, as the state’s chief minister, Basavaraj Bommai, had declared that Karnataka would not give up its demands, which meant the state’s claims on villages from Solapur and Sangli districts in Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, MPs of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA)—the NCP, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress—wrote a letter seeking the intervention of Union home minister Amit Shah. They expressed their displeasure over the attack on the vehicles and the objectionable comments made by Bommai. The MPs were scheduled to meet the Union home minister on Thursday, but the meeting was cancelled owing to it being election result day.
Former chief minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray alleged that even today, atrocities against Marathi-speaking people in the border areas were on and that the BJP wanted to break Maharashtra. “The Karnataka government has banned the entry of leaders from Maharashtra. Are they going to start a visa system or make entry points like a toll naka?” he asked, pointing out that there is one party ruling at the Centre, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
“Despite the fact that the Karnataka CM is making provocative statements, the Maharashtra CM is silent under the Centre’s pressure,” charged Thackeray, questioning the silence of BJP and Shiv Sena (BSS) MPs in Parliament on the border dispute after MPs from the MVA raised the issue in the lower House.
On Thursday, around 7,000 of the over-100,000 pilgrims returned to the state in 145 buses from Belgavi. The Shinde-Fadnavis government is under tremendous pressure vis-à-vis the security of these pilgrims who were on a pilgrimage to Yellamma Temple in Belgavi (Karnataka) when the violence broke out.
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