Maha Ministers skip Belagavi visit

Mumbai: A Maharashtra ministerial delegation that was supposed to visit Belagavi in Karnataka on Tuesday amid the border row between the two states seemed to have skipped its schedule due to the respective ministers' pre-decided events, even as Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai assured his government was committed to protect the borders and ensure Kannadigas' welfare.

The two ministers, expected to be joined by a member of Parliament, were scheduled to meet activists of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) at Belagavi in Karnataka on Tuesday and hold talks with them on the decades-old border issue.

The development came a day after Karnataka Chief Minister Bommai said he will ask his Maharashtra counterpart Eknath Shinde to not to depute his cabinet colleagues -- Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai -- to Belagavi as planned citing law and order, even as prohibitory orders were clamped in the district ahead of the proposed visit of the delegation.

When contacted, a close associate of Chandrakant Patil said, "The minister was in Pune on Monday and he has a number of meetings scheduled in Mumbai on Tuesday. The minister has in his official schedule stated he would attend all the meetings. I am not aware of any of his plans to visit Belagavi."

Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar termed the situation in the border areas of Maharashtra and Karnataka as "worrisome", and said time has come to take a stand after seeing what is happening there.

Amid a simmering border dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka, activists of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction on Tuesday sprayed black and orange paints on at least three Karnataka state transport buses in Swargate area of Pune city.

They also wrote "Jai Maharashtra" on these buses.

A local leader of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) faction confirmed they painted the buses.

Workers of the Shiv Sena (UBT) faction sprayed at least two-three buses of Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) with black paint. They also used an orange spray to write "Jai Maharashtra" on these buses.

"We have detained four to five people who painted the buses," a police officer said.