Differences among leaders, coupled with lack of political will on the part of the coalition government, have compelled the District Reorganisation Committee headed by former additional chief secretary V Balasubramanian to drop the idea of bifurcating the two big districts of Gulbarga and Belgaum.
Instead, the committee is understood to have restricted itself to recommending the carving up of two new districts - Ramanagara and Chikaballapur - out of Bangalore Rural and Kolar districts respectively.
The committee is expected to submit its report in the first week of June and the two new districts are likely to be formally inaugurated on August 15.
In an irony of sorts, three prominent leaders from Gulbarga district -- N Dharam Singh, Mallikarjun Kharge and Sharanabasappa Darshanapur -- who wield considerable clout at the State level, instead of pressurising the government on speeding up bifurcation of the district, have thrown a spanner in the works. 
And not for the first time. Earlier when the J H Patel government bifurcated some districts (Bijapur, Dharwad, Bellary, Bijapur and Chitradurga), it had to give up the move to bifurcate Gulbarga due to claims and counter-claims of these three leaders. While Mr Kharge, who sees Yadgir town as his fief, would not agree to anything which would deprive district headquarter status to the town, Mr Darshanapur, district in-charge minister in the Patel government, tried to talk Mr Patel into declaring Shahapur town, represented by him, as the new district headquarters or defer any decision “till a suitable time”.
Mr Singh, for his part, was opposed to inclusion of a big chunk of Jewargi taluk, including Jewargi town, in the proposed Yadgir district. He wanted the areas to stay in Gulbarga district.

Arguments
Last month when the committee visited Gulbarga, it is learnt to have met with same arguments from the three. “Moreover, all these leaders have thrown their weight around enough to make the government ask the committee to drop the proposal to bifurcate Gulbarga,” highly placed sources told Deccan Herald.
As for Belgaum, the government has reportedly asked the committee to put any change on the back burner thanks to opposition mainly from Kannada organisations, whose argument that bifurcation would ‘weaken’ Kannadiga strength in the border areas, apparently won the day.

Problems
As expected, the committee faced little problem vis-a-vis Ramanagar as Mr H D Kumaraswamy himself is very keen on carving this new district out of Bangalore Rural, incorporating Ramanagara, Magadi, Channapatna and Kanakapura taluks.
It also did not face any problem whittling chunks off Kolar to form a new district (Chikaballapur). According to sources, the six taluks of Chikaballapur, Chintamani, Bagepalli, Gudibande, Gauribidanur and Siddlaghatta would form the new district, while the five others -- Kolar, Srinivasapura, Bangarapet, Mulbagal and Malur -- would remain in Kolar district.