National

Divided They Stand

Much to the BJP’s chagrin, the Congresstakes the lead in reviving the call for statehood in Vidarbha

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Divided They Stand
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THE Centre’s decision to grant statehood to Uttarakhand has touched a raw nerve and revived the call for a separate state in Vidarbha. For the first time since the region joined Maharashtra 36 years ago, all political parties except the Shiv Sena have taken up the demand for statehood for Vidarbha. The BJP, for long the only main party backing the issue, had softened its demand in deference to the Shiv Sena, only to find its plank being usurped by the Congress whose leaders are now ardently supporting the cause with resolutions, rallies and appeals in Delhi. 

"Uttarakhand was our inspiration. We have a stronger case for statehood than Uttarakhand. Our demand is not through bloodshed, and on-the-streets agitation should be left to the final stage of a movement," says former Congress MP Vilas Muttemwar. He is the convenor of the Vidarbha Rajya Congress Steering Committee which has placed the demand for a separate state before the Prime Minister and whose members include former union ministers Vasant Sathe, N.K.P. Salve and Mukul Wasnik. And while state Congressmen like Sharad Pawar and S.B. Chavan don’t support the issue, the Committee is backed by other senior party leaders—Balram Jakhar, K. Karunakaran, Meira Kumar, Ahmed Patel, Rajesh Pilot and Ghulam Nabi Azad —who have signed the memorandum seeking "restoration of statehood to Vidarbha".

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A part of the erstwhile Central Provinces and Berar, Vidarbha merged with Maharashtra with which it shares a linguistic identity, when states were re-organised on a linguistic basis. The question that is now being posed is: if there can be many Hindi-speaking states, why can’t there be two Marathi-speaking ones? If Hindi-speaking Uttarakhand can press for statehood, why not a largely Marathi-speaking Vidar-bha? After all, the argument in both cases is neglect by parent states. Says Rakesh Naure, a rickshaw-puller from Nagpur: "75 per cent of the people here are for a separate state. Western Maharashtra is ruling and other regions get preference. We get nothing."

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Seeking reactions on the issue, local daily Lokmat Times found many in favour of a separate state, though doubts persist about the quality of leadership left behind. "There may not be too much enthusiasm among the people. But now that the Congress has lent its support, the demand is strong. Both the Prime Minister and the Congress president have been supportive," said the newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief Vijay Darba on his return from a meeting with Deve Gowda.

Congress leaders, meanwhile, intend pushing their demand through at the winter session of Parliament next month. Party President Sitaram Kesri has already been requested to persuade the high command to approve an independent Pradesh Congress Committee for Vidarbha. This is the first time the Congress leadership has collectively participated in the demand for a separate Vidarbha state. The cause had earlier been led by people’s movements, the BJP and smaller parties. This is Vidarbha’s third cohesive movement for statehood, and it is being led by political parties.

But the Congress move has left the BJP bereft of its frontline position on the issue. The latter conceded a two-year period to the Shiv Sena, which is strongly opposed to "dismembering Maharashtra", to develop Vid-arbha and hold it back. But with a prominent presence in the region—six MPs and 22 MLAs—it is reluctant to let go of the plank that has helped it push the Congress out—from a time when the Congress held 65 out of 66 assembly and all the 11 Lok Sabha seats, to now when it is left with 17 assembly and two Lok Sabha seats.

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And so the BJP plans to take up the issue at its national executive next month. Says Ban-warilal Purohit, an MP from Nagpur: "The BJP does not run on the Shiv Sena’s line. From the gully to New Delhi, we’re for a separate Vidarbha. If the Congress pushes it in Delhi, we’ll support separation." Purohit, like his party colleagues, criticises the Congress for not having done anything in the region for 35 years despite having enough representation. 

Arvind Shahapurkar, the BJP’s organising secretary for Vidar-bha echoes his sentiments: "For 11 years, Vasantrao Naik was Maharashtra chief minister. All he did was build a bungalow for himself in Mumbai. And that’s what Congress leaders have done for Vidarbha: self-development." Many Congressmen too accede to this view, but they largely blame their counterparts in western Maharashtra for the regional imbalance that has left Vidarbha backward. "We have a Congress minister (Wankhede) from Vidarbha who built a big stadium in Mumbai in his name, but couldn’t even make a playground here in his mother’s memory," says Satish Chaturvedi, a former state minister and local MLA. He calls western Maharashtra’s dominance and treatment of Vidarbha as basically "an attitude war". Says he: "If you go deep, we have been relegated to second class citizenship in this state." He points out to the development backlog that has grown to Rs 25,000 crore and cites an instance where Rs 50 crore meant for the region was diverted for earthquake relief in Latur, but was actually used for irrigation in a neighbouring district.

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Chaturvedi’s strategy for demanding statehood also differs from that of his colleagues. While they prefer meetings and memoranda, he advocates militancy. On October 2, he formed the Vidarbha Sena, and pledged to fight till statehood is achieved even if it means pressuring the state government. "There’s no option but a separate Vidarbha—you can’t change their attitudes. When nine children died in Pune in an auto accident, Sharad Pawar rushed in a state helicopter. When 114 tribals were crushed to death here during the assembly session, he didn’t even have the courtesy to see them. Are we not humans?" he asks.

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Votaries for Vidarbha find their most forceful argument in the recommendation of the State Reorganisation Commission under Justice Fazal Ali (Para 8 of the Commission’s report of 1955) which favoured "an independent state of Vidarbha" for it to become "fully self-reliant and viable". Promises to grant Vidarbha more than its share, made in the Nagpur and Ashoka pacts, have been empty ones. 

Advocate Srihari Aney, who for years has been leading the movement to separate Vidarbha through his Vidarbha Raj San-gharsh Samiti, finds that with the Congress taking up the demand—the Sena has no presence here—the last line of resistance has fallen. "Five years ago when I was persuading people at street corners, they asked me why I wanted a Vidarbha state. When the BJP passes its resolution at Bhubaneshwar, the middle class joins us; When the RPI says yes, so do the Dalits; with the Janata Dal accepting, the Muslims join. And the rest come with the Congress," says he. This is the third significant movement for statehood—the first being the opposition movement against joining Maharashtra; the second led by Jambhuvantrao Dhote in the ’70s. The latter began at the student level and petered out when Dhote joined the Congress in the late ’70s. However, the latest movement has kindled hope since it’s spearheaded by political parties.

While many see this as just a ‘political demand’ articulated by Congress leaders seeking rehabilitation in the region (legal opinion foresees fresh elections in Maharashtra with 66 members of the 288-strong assembly moving out), others see this as the only option if Mumbai does not address Vidarbha’s needs soon. Says Govind Daga, president of Vidarbha Economic Development: "The problem is that we’re not in their reckoning," and not that there’s a "conscious effort" at neglecting the region by Maharashtra. Like other businessmen, he feels trade and industry place a priority on development. "For us the end is development, one of the means could be statehood. If there’s an alternate means to the end, we don’t mind," he says. But not many agree with him. Being out of rest of Maharashtra’s sight and mind, they see no other means to the end. 

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