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Sonia gives no commitment on Vidarbha

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi gave a patient hearing on Thursday to both the protagonists and antagonists of a separate Vidarbha state, but did not give any assurance to either side.

"Madam gave us a patient hearing and told us that she was looking into the matter as it deserved consideration," said former Congress MP Vilas Muttemwar, one of the party leaders spearheading the movement for a separate state.

Muttemwar, who reportedly met Gandhi on Thursday morning, said, "Madam has promised to send an independent AICC observer to Nagpur to assess the situation."

He earlier met senior Congress politician Pranab Mukherjee, who is heading the committee looking into the demand for a separate Vidarbha. Congress sources said that though the letter to Sonia Gandhi released by Muttemwar gave the names of 18 Congress MLAs and MLCs, only five met Mukherjee to apprise him of the "unrest in the region because our demand has not yet been fulfilled".

The letter emphasised that "the Congress high command at this stage must agree to create a separate state of Vidarbha. Such a decision alone will meet the aspirations of the people of Vidarbha and enable us to redeem the pledge to the people of Vidarbha."

Asserting that the three newly created states -- Jharkhand, Uttaranchal and Chhattisgarh -- did not have the requisite infrastructure to qualify as states, Muttemwar and the others said Vidarbha was viable administratively, financially, socially and politically.

But the fact that former Congress MP Gurudas Kamat, vice-president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee, also met Gandhi and senior party leaders to "strongly oppose the demand for a separate Vidarbha state" indicated that the party high command was playing one against the other to delay the issue.

Kamat told rediff.com that he had met Arjun Singh, Madhavrao Scindia, Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes and Dr Manmohan Singh to urge them to prevent the creation of the proposed state.

According to Kamat, he told the party chief that the committee looking into the Vidarbha issue must hear out all the parties involved and no hasty decision should be taken on such a crucial issue.

The Congress leadership is aware that the late party stalwart Yashwant Balwant Chavan had way back in 1960 told the Maharashtra assembly that he would protect the interests of the people of Vidarbha and that they need not worry on this score.

Chavan told the assembly that whenever possible, everything would be done to hasten the creation of the proposed Vidarbha state.

But four decades later, neither Congress leaders nor anybody else from any other party have been able to make much headway on the issue.

Significantly, during the recent Nagpur session of the BJP's national executive, Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani had rejected the demand for a separate Vidarbha by local partymen with the explanation that there was no unanimity on the issue.

While the Vajpayee government is allegedly under pressure from Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray not to concede a separate Vidarbha state, the protagonists cutting across party lines allege that the people of western Maharashtra and Bombay are exploiting the Vidarbha and so don't want it to become a separate state.

BJP spokesman M Venkaiah Naidu, who reassumed charge on Thursday as chief party spokesman, told rediff.com that "the demand for a separate Vidarbha state had been rejected by Advaniji at Nagpur recently and that is where the matter stands".

But despite the rebuffs they have received, the pro-Vidarbha politicians have indicated that they will continue their fight.

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