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Congress summons supporters of Vidarbha

Shaunak Nachare in Bombay

ALL 26 Congress MLAs from Vidarbha in Maharashtra have been summoned to Delhi by the party leadership on Thursday to discuss the contentious demand for separate statehood for the region.

The MLAs have been asked to air their views on the issue which has split the party vertically, Maharashtra's Transport Minister Shivajirao Moghe said Tuesday. All India Congress Committe general secretary in-charge of Maharashtra, Motilal Vora, will hear out the MLAs.

Only elected representatives, however, have been summoned. The call does not extend to party MLCs from the region, one of whom is Agriculture Minister Ranjit Deshmukh, who has so far made the loudest noises on the issue and triggered a war of words with Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

"We (the group of Congressmen favouring statehood) have already said we will boycott organisational polls and form a separate bloc in the Assembly if a separate party panel is not formed for Vidarbha and the statehood demand not granted. We're waiting for the high command to make up its mind," Ranjit Deshmukh said recently.

The CM, on his part, has slammed Deshmukh saying he does not have proprietory rights over Vidarbha, and another Congress leader from the region, Dr Shrikant Jichkar, has termed the statehood demand as the invention of the "politically unemployed."

"If Vidarbha were to become a state on its own, we (the new state) will be in a worse position than Bihar. On the first day itself, we'll have no money to pay salaries of government employees," he warned.

Backing Jichkar, senior Congress leader V N Gadgil said: "It will be ironical if Maharashtra is divided to satisfy the selfish desires of a few politicians. 105 people did not lay down their lives for a disintegrated, truncated and moth-eaten Maharashtra."

Congress is not the only party divided on the issue. All major political outfits in the state barring the Shiv Sena have split vertically, with both pro and anti-statehood groups shouting themselves hoarse.

In the Nationalist Congress Party, senior leaders from Vidarbha Sudhakarrao Naik and Datta Meghe are aggressively advocating statehood, while leaders from Western Maharashtra, like state NCP president Babanrao Pachpute are undecided.

"The issue has not yet come up for discussion before the working committee, nor has it been decided whether to move any kind of resolution in the Assembly," Pachpute said. Meghe contradicted him: "NCP legislators will surely move a resolution favouring statehood in the Assembly."

NCP chief, Sharad Pawar, still hasn't spelt out his stand on the matter.

The BJP is openly indulging in double-talk. After having first strongly and officially pressed for creation of a separate Vidarbha in keeping with the party's national policy of carving out smaller states for "administrative viability and resources management," it is doing a major rethink.

Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani thwarted attempts to discuss Vidarbha during BJP's recently-held Nagpur conclave, saying: "Though we are in favour of a separate state, we shouldn't insist too hard as the Centre can't do anything unless the Assembly unanimously passes a resolution."

Prime Minister A B Vajpayee too threw the ball in the Assembly's court, stressing that the three states of Chhatisgarh, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand could be created only because NDA allies all agreed and the respective assemblies (Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) passed unanimous resolutions for the smaller states.

The BJP now fears an adverse political fallout if it pushes things too far, as there is hardly any mass support for separate statehood. "We are likely to lose out on support in other parts of Maharashtra, where we still have to consolidate our hold. In fact, most of our MLAs from Vidarbha are themselves against granting of statehood. Besides, our ally, the Shiv Sena is strongly against the statehood demand," a BJP leader said, underlining that the BJP's original stand didn't appear "politically prudent at this moment."

As of now, the Shiv Sena is the only party that is unequivocal and united in its opposition to the statehood demand. "I will not tolerate the division of Maharashtra, which was formed after the sacrifice of 105 people. Vasantrao Naik from Vidarbha was chief minister of Maharashtra for 11 years. His nephew Sudhakarrao Naik was also CM. Vasant Sathe, another leader from Vidarbha supporting statehood, was in Indira Gandhi's kitchen cabinet for years.Why couldn't all these people ensure Vidarbha's development? Why do they want Maharashtra to pay for their failures?" asked Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, claiming that the Sena-BJP government had in four-and-a-half years of its rule spent more funds for Vidarbha's development than the Congress had in its 35 years of uninterrupted power.

Party leader and former CM Narayan Rane alleged a lobby of non-Maharashtrian entrepreneurs was behind the separate statehood demand. "These traders -- some of them legislators -- want to be chief ministers of the smaller state and are hence trying to break up Maharashtra, and Congress legislators are playing into their hands," he said.

ALSO SEE
Vidarbha bandh on November 27
Vidarbha! Deshmukh takes the battle to Mantralaya
MPCC pulls up Ranjit Deshmukh

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