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Maharashtra to seek PM's intervention in border dispute

A delegation of representatives from the Maharashtra-Karnataka border area today gave full powers to the five-member all-party committee formed by the government in Bombay to settle the long-standing boundary dispute.

The committee has, in turn, decided to take up the matter with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The committee members -- Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sharad Pawar, senior Peasants and Workers Party leader N D Patil, and Bharatiya Janata Party politician Ram Kapse, a former MP, met in Bombay today for two hours after an interval of more than two years.

The fifth member, former Union finance minister Madhu Dandavate, did not attend the meeting because of ill-health.

Briefing reporters at Sahyadri, the official guest house of the Maharashtra government, Joshi said the committee would meet more often to discuss various issues relating to the boundary dispute. He said the delegation had told the committee that though it wanted the issue to be settled permanently, it also did not want relations between the two states to be affected. "If necessary, we will also meet Karnataka Chief Minister J H Patel to discuss the issue," Joshi said.

The committee, however, has not fixed any time frame to resolve the dispute. Nor has it fixed a date for meeting the prime minister. Pawar said Vajpayee will return from his foreign trip only on October 1 when he (Pawar) will leave on a visit to the United Nations. So a decision regarding this matter will be taken after his return.

N G Tarale, MLA from Belgaum, said the people of the town had suffered the most over the last 40 years because of the dispute. Representatives of the people had staged a dharna (sit-in) at Joshi's official residence, Varsha, in south Bombay last month, demanding that the efforts to resolve the issue be expedited. That was why Joshi convened today's meeting.

Joshi had told reporters during his post-cabinet press briefing last week that the state government was exploring legal avenues for a quick resolution of the dispute because former Chief Justice of India Y V Chandrachud had felt that Maharashtra had a strong case. But this option did not come up for discussion at today's meeting.

UNI

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