Maharashtra Ministers' visit to Belagavi next week not good: K'taka CM Bommai
Belagavi, Dec 2: Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said it was not good for the two Maharashtra Ministers to visit Belagavi.
The two Ministers -- Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai -- have been appointed to tackle the border issue with their legal team and have planned a visit to Belagavi, which is at the centre of a controversy.
It is reported that the two are likely to meet leaders of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), which has been spearheading the movement to merge Belagavi with Maharashtra.
Their visit is taking place when the Maharashtra government's petition regarding Belagavi was heard recently in the Supreme Court.
"Already our Chief Secretary has written to the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra through fax. In the given situation it is not good for them to visit here and hence, they should not come here. We have already communicated to them. The Karnataka government will continue to take steps which were taken in the past," Bommai told reporters in Belagavi.
To a question, Bommai said the drinking water project in Jat Taluk in Maharashtra should take place.
"The Kannada-speaking people in Jat Taluk of Maharashtra have been suffering for drinking water. In such a situation, the Maharashtra government has said that it has planned drinking water project. Let that project happen and people in that region get water," Bommai said.
The Chief Minister had said in the past that the Panchayats of Jat Taluk had passed a resolution requesting merger of their Taluk with Karnataka in the wake of severe water crisis. As Maharashtra raked up the Belagavi issue, Bommai said it would revisit the resolution passed by Jat Taluk Panchayats.
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MP boat tragedy: Death toll climbs to 13; body of last missing person recovered
Jabalpur (PTI): The bodies of a five-year-old boy and his uncle were recovered from Bargi Dam in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur district on Sunday morning, raising the death toll in the cruise boat tragedy to 13, police said.
The boat, around 20 years old and operated by the state tourism department, capsized during a storm on Thursday evening.
"The bodies of Mayuram (5) and his uncle Kamraj (around 50), an employee of the Ordnance Factory in Khamaria, were found floating and were fished out of the dam," Bargi Sub Divisional Officer of Police Anjul Ayank Mishra told PTI over the phone.
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All 13 missing persons identified have now been accounted for, he said, adding the bodies were sent to a government hospital for postmortem.
Teams comprising around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, along with personnel from the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force and local divers, were involved in the search operation, the police said.
Of the 41 identified passengers on board the vessel, 28 were rescued after the incident, according to the police.
The CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the boat, though the identities of 41 passengers have been confirmed so far, they said.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the incident and dismissed three crew members. It also banned the operation of similar vessels in the state.
