Earlier this month, the Maharashtra government announced the inclusion of 865 border villages of Karnataka in the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule health scheme. Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shindhe said it would benefit both Marathi and Kannada speakers in these Karnataka villages. However, three days later, when the Maharashtra government released the application form for the scheme, it made the applicants testify that they were Marathi speakers from Karnataka.
Kannada organisations called it a “clandestine attempt” by Maharashtra to collect evidence for its claim that a large number of Marathi speakers reside in Belagavi and other border districts.
