Separate Vidarbha issue a bogey, charges Adsad

Separate Vidarbha issue a bogey, charges Adsad
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NAGPUR, SEPT 13: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party and former chairman of Vidarbha Development Board, Arun Adsad, alleged that a section of Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders were raising the issue of separate Vidarbha just to divert the failure of multi-party coalition government in the State.

He advised the Congressmen to convince their leader, Sonia Gandhi first on the issue. "The Vajpayee Government has already said that it would create a separate Vidarbha state, if such a resolution is passed by the state legislature," he pointed out and challenged the coalition government to move such a resolution in the coming winter session in the state legislature.

According to him, the issue was deliberately taken by the leaders of coalition partners just to divert the anguish of cotton growers of the region and failure of the Vilasrao Deshmukh-led Government on every front.

Meanwhile, the former Maharashtra minister and vice-president of state unit of Congress, Baburao Madavi, appealed to all Congressmen in the region to restrain themselves on the sensitive issue of separate Vidarbha at this crucial juncture.

In view of the present political situation in the State, particularly the state of affairs of Congress, the party leaders should rethink the issue at the moment. Both the chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh and the MPCC chief, Govindrao Adik had admitted that the development backlogs were not removed during the given times and assured to remove it through a time-bound programme, he said and felt that a chance should be given to them for it.

Madavi clarified that he was in favour of separate Vidarbha and one of the members of Vidarbha Rajya Samannaya Samiti. But this is not the proper time to raise the issue, he added.

On the other hand, a group of Congress legislators, led by Wamanrao Kasawar and Nitin Raut, who formed an action committee on the issue, preferred to keep a low profile since the last one month.

It was this group which had raised the issue immediately after the announcement of Vajpayee Government for creation of three new states, Chhatisgarh, Uttarkhand and Jharkhand. They also declared that a resolution will be tabled on the issue in the ensuing state legislature session in Nagpur.