On a day when Union home minister P Chidambaram announced that the UPA government would no longer flip-flop on Telangana statehood and
try to work out a mechanism in the January 5 all-party meeting, pro-Vidarbha Congress leaders in the city decided to revive the Vidarbha agitation in the right earnest.
On Sunday, party leaders led by city MP Vilas Muttemwar will sit on a ‘dharna’ in front of the Gandhi statue at Variety Square in a peaceful agitation to demand that Vidarbha statehood demand should be considered along with Telangana. “The demand for Vidarbha is much older and stronger than that of Telangana and in the Fazal ali Commission had classified Vidarbha as “viable, stable and suplus,’when rejecting proposals for Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand,” said an appeal signed by Nagpur (south) MLA Dinanath Padole, former mayors Vikas Thakre, Naresh Gawande and Kishore Dorle and Bijju Pande.
“For last 50 years, people of Vidarbha waited in vain to see development of the region remaining in Maharashtra. But this never happened and the region remains most under-develooed in the country,” the statement read.
They have appealed to all pro-Vidarbha activists to join the peaceful agitation on Sunday. Meanwhile, in an emotionally charged letter written to all 24 Congress MLAs from the region, Muttemwar has appealed to them to rise to the occasion and get active to pursue the separate state demand. “Had the 54 MLAs elected from Vidarbha taken a different view in 1954, Mumbai would not have remained in Maharashtra and Yeshwantrao Chavan would not become the first CM of a Marathi speaking state,” the veteran Congress MP rote in the letter.
“Time and again, it was on the strength of Vidarbha’s Congress MLAs that the party has come to power in Maharashtra. It was not the idea of a Marathi speaking state but the appeal of the then prime minister Pandit Jawharlal Nehru in national interest that moved leaders of Vidarbha to accept to be part of Maharashtra,” Muttemwar stressed.
In the fervent appeal, Muttemwar said, “Now the time has come for a separate state.
The next generation and history will not forgive you if you fail to meet the aspirations and developmental dream of the people who see the separate state as the only solution now,” said Muttemwar. Rven Father of Constitution Dr B R Ambedkar supported the idea of Vidarbha state, the MP reminded his party legislators.