NEW DELHI: With the Centre's affidavit in the Supreme Court on Maharashtra's boundary dispute with Karnataka creating a storm, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan today downplayed the development.
"Nothing has happened. Only pleadings have been exchanged between parties - Maharashtra, Karnataka and the Centre," Chavan told reporters here in reply to a volley of questions on the issue.
Despite the Centre's counter-affidavit evoking sharp reactions, the Chief Minister insisted that the stage has not come for framing of issues in the Supreme Court and the process would start next week.
When confronted with several questions on the issue, Chavan said he would be able to answer them only after consulting legal experts.
"The original stand of the state has not changed. The position of the Centre, mentioned in November 2006, has also not changed," he said.
A counter affidavit filed by the Centre in the Supreme Court, hearing the border dispute between the two states, evoked sharp political reactions from state leaders with Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray saying the Centre meted out injustice to Maharashtrians.
Thackeray's comments came after the Centre, in reply to Maharashtra's six-year-long claim over Karnataka's Marathi-speaking districts like Gulbarga and Belgaum, told the Supreme Court that just because most people in the border districts talk Marathi, it is not ground enough for the areas to be appended to Maharashtra.
Chavan raised the issue during a meeting with Home Minister P Chidambaram and firmly put across the position of the state on the issue.
In a suit filed in the Supreme Court in March 2004, Maharashtra had claimed that 865 towns and villages have been wrongly included in Karnataka.
In February last year, Maharashtra had filed an application for amendment to the original suit contending that the act of transferring the disputed areas to Karnataka is contrary to the well-established principles of reorganisation followed in the case of other states.
In reply to this, the Centre, through a counter-affidavit filed late last month, sought dismissal of the application moved by Maharashtra.