The Karnataka government is learnt to have initiated the process to supersede the Belagavi City Corporation in the wake of the mayor and other elected representatives observing Kannada Rajyotsava as a black day.
Urban Development Department (UDD) Secretary V Ponnuraj said a show-cause notice would be issued to Mayor Sanjay Shinde and other corporators who had taken part in the black day rally organised by Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) on November 1. The government will take an appropriate action based on the reply, he said.
Belagavi Deputy Commissioner M Jayaram recently submitted a report to the UDD on the incident. He is learnt to have said that the mayor and the corporators had shown disrespect to Karnataka and its government by participating in the black day protest rally. He also said some MES activists sitting on horseback were wielding rifles during the rally.
The MES had organised the rally demanding the merger of Belagavi with Maharashtra. The Opposition BJP and the JD(S) and various Kannada organisations condemned the MES and the Belagavi mayor and demanded that the government take action against the city corporation.
The government had superseded the Belagavi City Corporation (BCC) twice for its anti-Karnataka stand in the past. In 2011, the then BJP government superseded the BCC after the then mayor Manda Balekundri and deputy mayor Renu Killekar participated in a similar black day rally.
The city corporation was superseded in 2006, too, as the then mayor Vijay More had passed a controversial resolution on the boundary dispute.
DH News Service