New Delhi, Feb. 23 -- Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has said that the border dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka has been pending for a long time and that the Centre should work to expedite the case in the Supreme Court.

"The border dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka has been going on since the formation of Maharashtra in 1960. In 2000, the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh, took the matter to the Supreme Court. This matter has been pending in the Supreme Court for the last 25 years... People of Belagavi are forced to speak Kannada. The Marathi language there is slowly vanishing... We request the central government to get this case heard in the Supreme Court...," Chavan told ANI.

He...