Amid simmering tension at the Karnataka-Maharashtra border, the police on Monday foiled the Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti's (MMES) mega protest in Belagavi and detained its leaders even as several members from opposition parties from Maharashtra were stopped from crossing the border.
As the 10-day session of the Karnataka legislature commenced in Belagavi amid tight security, MMES activist Suraj Kanbarkar said some members from opposition parties in Maharashtra proceeding towards Belagavi district were detained by the Maharashtra police. The session will be the last one of the current assembly as elections in the southern state are due early next year.
There were also reports that about 300 members from the opposition parties in Maharashtra belonging to the Shiv Sena, Congress, and Nationalist Congress Party were stopped at the border and detained or sent back by the Karnataka police.
The MMES had planned to stage a massive demonstration to press for the merger of the entire Belagavi district with Maharashtra.
The MMES and some political outfits in Maharashtra have been pressing for this demand on the ground that Belagavi district and a few other neighbouring areas of Karnataka have a substantial Marathi-speaking population. But, Karnataka has been rejecting the demand.
Kanbarkar said the police detained MMES youth wing president Shubham Shelke, former MLA Manohar Kinekar, treasurer Prakash Marghale and MMES councillor Shivaji Mandolkar.
As the decades-old border dispute between Karnataka and Belagavi flared up yet again, a security blanket has been thrown across Belagavi city which has been turned into a fortress.
According to police sources, nearly 5,000 policemen were deployed for maintaining law and order in the city during the winter session of the state legislature.
Kanbarkar alleged that the police removed the pandal, chairs and tables from the planned protest site at Vaccine Depot ground in Tilakwadi in Belagavi after giving permission.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said in the state assembly that the state should stand firmly behind people in the Marathi-speaking areas of neighbouring Karnataka and appealed to political parties not to behave in a way that would hurt them.
Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the state government was making efforts for the release of the people and leaders detained in Karnataka.
