Amid border row, K'taka CM meets Rajnath Singh, urges him to handover State's land under 'defence control'

New Delhi, November 30: Amid its ongoing war with Maharashtra over the border dispute row, the Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai who is in New Delhi met the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and urged him to hand over 732.24 acres of land, under defence control, to Karnataka.

 

 

Citing development initiatives to be undertaken in the said land, Karnataka CM said, “732.24 acres of land at Tukamatti village in Belagavi district belongs to the state government but under the control of Ministry of Defence, without which it has not been possible to take up any development works in the district.”

 

“Suitable directions may be issued to the authorities concerned to hand over that land to the deputy commissioner of Belagavi district,” CM urged Rajnath Singh.

 

 

 

The CM was accompanied by Chief Minister’s Principal Secretary Manjunath Prasad, Additional Chief Secretary (Water Resources) Rakesh Singh and others.

 

it should be noted that Bommai is on his visit to Delhi. During this, he is scheduled to meet BJP president J P Nadda. Apart from him, he also will have discussions with a senior advocate in the Supreme Court regarding the legal battle with Maharashtra over the border dispute. Supreme Court is also going to hear Maharashtra's petition on a festering territorial dispute, today.

 

Maharashtra, since its inception in 1960, has been entangled in a dispute with Karnataka over the status of the Belgaum (also called Belagavi) district and 80 other Marathi-speaking villages which are in the control of the southern state.

 

The border dispute dates back to the 1960s after the reorganisation of states on linguistic lines. The case is now before the Supreme Court.

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