Karnataka’s minister for food, civil supplies and consumer affairs Umesh Katti on Wednesday said that the state will be divided into two parts after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.We all need to create a movement for a separate state of North Karnataka and there should be no doubts that the new state will come into existence. Bengaluru has reached a saturation point with problems like traffic and other problems,” Katti said while addressing an event organised by Belagavi Bar Association.He said that a debate is trending online that over 50 states will be carved out after the next polls and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take the initiative in which Maharashtra will be split into three, four in Uttar Pradesh and two in Karnataka.
He added that there are several information technology and other corporations in Bengaluru in which countless people from North Karnataka are working.The statements have reignited the existing regional divide debate in Karnataka in which most of the population and leaders from the northern parts of the state have been demanding for a state in order to get better amenities and development for the region.Katti said that Belagavi has the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha, a high court bench and an international airport is being proposed to come up at Kittur which will help the region.Though northern Karnataka has a bigger land mass, most of Karnataka’s politics and the focus has remained on the southern districts.The regional disparity between the northern and southern parts has only been growing in the past few decades despite the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) drawing most of its strength from these parts where its biggest support base, the Lingayats, are found in large numbers.“As a minister from the region, he should help develop the northern parts but instead these people are pitting people against each other for personal gains and get a bigger share of corruption. He is dreaming of becoming the CM of this region,” Praveen Shetty, the president of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, a pro-Kannada group, told a news channel.