Issuing a press statement here on Thursday, Umakant Ramteke, general secretary of the Maharashtra unit of RPI, accused the Bharatiya Janata Party for betraying the people of Vidarbha by not including the issue in the proposed Bill. ``It was the BJP which included a separate Vidarbha state in its election manifesto in the 1998 Lok Sabha polls,'' he pointed out, and alleged that the party had now forgotton the issue after coming to power.

The Union Cabinet passed a resolution recently to initiate an official Bill for formation of these three states in the monsoon session of Parliament which starts from tomorrow while it failed to consider the case of Vidarbha.

The genuine demand for a separate Vidarbha state was deliberately ignored by theGovernment due to pressure from its ally, Shiv Sena, Ramteke said and demanded that the President should intervene in the matter and ensure that the proposed Bill also incorporates a separate Vidarbha state.

The party has already sent a telegram to the President in this regard, Ramteke further informed.

Vidarbha Rajya Gan Parishad today strongly condemned the Vajpayee Government for ignoring Vidarbha in the proposed Bill to be tabled in Parliament soon.S Q Zama of the parishad said that the people of Vidarbha would teach a lesson to the ruling BJP for non-inclusion of the Vidarbha issue in the proposed Bill. He threatened that if the issue was not included in the Bill, the Parishad would launch a massive agitation all over the region soon.

Zama appealed to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sharad Pawar, to give specific directives to the party MPs on the issue when the Bill is tabled for consideration.