The Karnataka Cabinet renamed the Mumbai-Karnataka region as Kittur Karnataka. The region comprises of Uttara Kannada, Belagavi, Dharwad, Vijayapura, Bagalkote, Gadag and Haveri districts, as Kittur Karnataka. Pro-Kannada organisations in the state had long raised the demand to rename the region that had been under the erstwhile Bombay Presidency before Independence.
Maharashtra has staked claim to an area of over 7,000 sq km along its border with Karnataka, comprising 814 villages in the districts of Belagavi, Uttara Kannada, Bidar and Gulbarga, and the towns of Belagavi, Karwar and Nippani.
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.
The name Kittur comes after a historical taluk in north Karnataka’s Belagavi district that was ruled by Rani Chennamma (1778-1829). Kittur Rani Chennamma had fought against the British about 40 years before Jhansi Rani Laxmibai. It is to be noted that Hyderabad-Karnataka region was earlier renamed as Kalyan-Karnataka.