Maha Assembly: NCP objects to Karnataka CM's 'anti-Maharashtra' stand

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Nationalist Congress Party legislator Jayant Patil on Friday raised the "anti-Maharashtra" comments of Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and asked the state government to take a note of it.

The NCP leader told the Maharashtra Assembly that after the government announced its plan to extend health insurance scheme Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana to the 865 Marathi-speaking villages in poll-bound Karnataka, Bommai has been targeting the neighbouring state.

"What is the problem if the health insurance scheme is provided to common citizens in the 865 villages?" he asked.

Patil told the House that Bommai has called the Maharashtra government's decision an "unpardonable offence". The NCP leader said, "He (Bommai) also said Karnataka would give grants to the Pandharpur and Tuljapur temple trusts."

The Karnataka CM on Thursday urged the Maharashtra government to immediately withdraw its order on implementation of the health insurance scheme in the Marathi-speaking villages on Karnataka's side of the border, and said he would be raising the matter with Union Home Minister Shah.

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The Eknath Shinde government recently announced the allocation of Rs 54 crore for the health insurance scheme so that benefits could be extended to the border villages in Karnataka that Maharashtra has been laying claim to.

The dispute dates back to 1957 after the reorganisation of States on linguistic lines. Maharashtra laid claim to Belagavi, which was part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency, as it has a sizeable Marathi-speaking population. It also laid claim to over 800 Marathi-speaking villages which are currently part of Karnataka.

In December last year, the Union Home Minister had stepped in to defuse border tensions between the two states. He called a meeting between the two chief ministers, after which he said both of them had agreed not to make any claims and counter-claims on the border issue till the Supreme Court had decided on the matter.

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