Mumbai: Amid the escalation of the border row between Karnataka and Maharashtra, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Tuesday warned that if things do not improve in the next 24 hours, then the Centre and the BJP government in Karnataka will be responsible for any untoward situation. Pawar also warned the Karnataka government not to test the patience of the people of Maharashtra and resolve the issue amicably.  


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The veteran Maratha leader and the NCP founder also said that the ''time has come to take a firm stand'' after seeing what is happening there on the Maharashtra and Karnataka border. The BCP supremo said, “CM Eknath Shinde must keep all the parties in confidence before taking any decision...Parliament session is about to begin, I request all MPs to come together & take a stand on the same.”


 



 


Accusing the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government of deliberately escalating the situation, Pawar claimed that since the last few weeks, conscious attempts were being made by the Karnataka CM to take the situation in a different direction. "Time has come to take a stand after seeing what is happening in border areas. The situation there is worrisome," said Pawar, whose party was part of the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra.


It may be recalled that Maharashtra Ministers Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai, appointed for coordinating the state's border dispute with Karnataka, were earlier scheduled to meet activists of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti at Belagavi in the southern state on Tuesday and hold talks with them on the decades-old border issue.


Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday said he will ask his Maharashtra counterpart Eknath Shinde not to send his cabinet colleagues to Belagavi as their visit may disrupt the law and order situation in the border district.


Asserting the border dispute with Maharashtra is settled, the CM said he has already instructed the officials concerned regarding the measures to be taken in case the ministers go ahead with the visit, and that the government will not hesitate to take any legal action.


Last week, Chandrakant Patil said there was a demand from the Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti, an organisation fighting for the merger of Belagavi and some other border areas with Maharashtra, to hold discussions with the volunteers on the Maharashtra-Karnataka border issue.


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


(With Agency Inputs)