By Surya Kumar
Visakhapatnam: Tension gripped Andhra-Odisha border areas following a visit by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to the disputed Kotia Group of Villages, the jurisdiction over which are being claimed by both the State Governments.
Pradhan, who hails from Odisha, visited the Kotia villages located near Pottangi of Odisha and Salur of Andhra Pradesh, on Saturday to take part in Odisha Formation Day celebrations.
Odisha was the first State formed on linguistic basis in 1936.
Twenty one tribal hamlets located in the area known as Kotia Group of Villages which have become a bone of contention with Odisha and Andhra Pradesh bifurcated from Madras and formed in 1956. There were no clear demarcation of boundaries since then leading to rival claims and both the States enlisting most of the tribals in the Kotia Group as their voters, sanctioning them ration cards and extending health facilities.
With officials from both the States vying with each other to extend goodies, the tribal residents also do play safe when teams from both States make visits separately for enumeration purposes. With the introduction of Aadhar cards, some of them claim different reasons.
The reported remarks by Pradhan to ‘go back’ on seeing Andhra Police recording his speech in mufti and the subsequent “Andhra Police go back” slogans raised in unison by the BJP activists present at the meeting held at Phatu Senari village caused tension in the border areas.
“It is unbecoming of a Central Minister to issue such provocative statements by inciting parochial feelings. The Supreme Court has already told both the States to sort the issue mutually,” AP Girijan Sangham general secretary Killo Surendra told Sisasat.com.
This was not the first visit of Pradhan to the Kotia villages. Earlier on a few occasions, he visited the area and blamed the Bharatiya Janata Dal (BJD) Government in Odisha led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for doing nothing to give a suitable reply to Andhra Pradesh’s claim over Kotia villages.
Incidentally, both the States run schools and police outposts in the disputed villages. During the visit, Pradhan directed the officials from the Koraput district of Odisha to remove the signposts put up by their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh.