Karnataka has renamed the Mumbai-Karnataka region, consisting of seven districts, as Kittur Karnataka.

What is the Mumbai-Karnataka Region?

• The erstwhile Mumbai-Karnataka region consisted of Uttara Kannada, Belagavi, Dharwad, Vijayapura, Bagalkote, Gadag and Haveri districts.

Reasons behind renaming

• The Karnataka government has meant to dissociate itself from any ties with the erstwhile Presidency or colonial-era nomenclature in regions that came under the newly formed state of Karnataka in 1956.
• The renaming is also to detach itself from any ties with Maharashtra.

Claims made by Maharashtra

• Maharashtra has staked claim to an area of over 7,000 sq. km along its border with Karnataka.
• It comprised 814 villages in the districts of Belagavi, Uttara Kannada, Bidar and Gulbarga, and the towns of Belagavi, Karwar and Nippani.
• Maharashtra wants to annex all these areas.
• The erstwhile Bombay Presidency, a multilingual province, included present-day Karnataka districts of Vijayapura, Belagavi, Dharwad and Uttara Kannada.
• The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 made Belagavi and 10 talukas of Bombay State a part of the then Mysore State (which was renamed Karnataka in 1973).

A case pending in the Supreme Court

• Successive governments in Maharashtra have demanded their inclusion within the state– a claim that Karnataka contests.
• In 2004, the Maharashtra government moved the Supreme Court for a settlement of the border dispute under Article 131(b) of the Constitution.
• It demanded 814 villages from Karnataka on the basis of the theory of village being the unit of calculation, contiguity and enumerating linguistic population in each village.
• The case is pending in the apex court.

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