Belgaum will be renamed Belagavi on November 1, Siddaramaiah says

BANGALORE: The Karnataka government has taken another step to reassert its hold over Belgaum. Chief minister Siddaramaiah announced here on Friday that Belgaum will be officially renamed Belagavi on November 1, when the state celebrates Rajyotsava to mark its formation.
However, it remains to be seen if the state government can clear the official hurdles it may encounter in renaming the city which has been the bone of contention between Karnataka and Maharashtra for the past four decades.
Siddaramaiah made the announcement following demands by representatives of Kannada organizations and litterateurs at a meeting convened in Bangalore to discuss the stand to be taken on the petition filed by Maharashtra in the Supreme Court seeking the inclusion of 814 villages in Belgaum.
The renaming of Belgaum was triggered when the late UR Ananthamurthy, at a meeting to discuss celebration of Karnataka’s golden jubilee in December 2005, suggested to the then CM N Dharam Singh that Bangalore be renamed Bengaluru. Singh readily agreed and this led to a slew of demands to rename other places and the list grew to 12 cities.

Chief minister Siddaramaiah
Karnataka sent a list of 13 names proposed to be renamed to the Centre in 2006 for its clearance from departments such as Survey of India, science & technology, posts & telegraphs and the railways. The proposals got stuck as the Maharashtra government filed a counter appeal before the Centre stating that renaming Belgaum was being done with political motives to hurt the sentiments of Marathi-speaking people and cut its historic roots with Marathi culture and language.
The UPA-1 government cleared the names with a rider that Belgaum should be dropped as it didn’t want to antagonize Maharashtra on the Mahajan Commission Report (which went into the border dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra). The JD(S)-BJP government declined to drop it and the issue went into cold storage as successive governments did not pursue the matter.
Renaming proposals
Bangalore -- Bengaluru
Mysore — Mysuru
Mangalore -- Mangaluru
Gulbarga -- Kalburgi
Hubli — Hubballi
Shimoga -- Shivamogga
Chikmagalur — Chikkmagaluru
Bellary — Ballary
Bijapur — Vijapura
Hospet — Hosapeta
Tumkur — Tumukuru
Kaup -- Kapu
Belgaum — Belagavi