Amar Singh floats National Front For Small States

Desperate to acquire some political identity after being ousted from the Samajwadi Party, one-time high-profile leader Amar Singh has eventually pitched in with a bandwagon of small-time politicians, struggling with their respective demands for creation of smaller states.

Even as their demand may still be a distant dream, Singh has succeeded in raising a new banner christened as 'National Front for New Small States' of which he proclaimed himself as founder chairman.

The announcement was made at a joint convention of leaders in Lucknow from different parts of the country, seeking creation of six new states - Purvanchal out of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Harit Pradesh out of Western Uttar Pradesh, Bundelkhand out of South UP, Vidharbha out of Maharashtra, Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh and Gorkhaland out of West Bengal.

However, despite Amar pumping in all his resources, it remained a poor show with not one front-line leader joining from any of the six places. Even Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh, who was seeking creation of Harit Pradesh, failed to show up.

The only prominent face was that of one-time Congressman Raja Bundela, who has been vocal on his demand for creation of Bundelkhand. Only second-rung leaders turned up from other places. Among those who led their respective delegations were P Nirup Reddy from Telangana, Gajanand Ahmedawadkar from Vidharbha and  Munish Tawang from Gorkhaland.

No wonder the Ganna Sansthan auditorium wore a deserted look.

And for the same reason, it was Amar Singh who used his gift of the gab to hog the so-called joint press conference on behalf of the group. While pointing out how smaller states could remove regional imbalances, he observed, "The success of smaller states was clearly visible in Chattisgarh, where Chief Minister Raman Singh had done far more than what its parent state Madhya Pradesh could do during the same period."

He did not miss the opportunity to train guns at both Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav as well as at BSP leader Mayawati. He went about citing examples of how both the leaders had just gone about devouring into the state's resources by pumping in everything on their respective homes.

"While electricity was generated in Anpara and Sonbhadra, it was directed to Mulayam's home in Saefai or Mayawati's home in Badalpur," he remarked.

He cited similar examples in construction of roads, which he felt, were being built in utter disproportions only in those two places.

"I  sought an appointment with Maya three times , but she has not cared to give me any time," Amar lamented.