Vilas Muttemwar, a Congress MP from Nagpur, has written a letter to all 24 Congress MLAs from Vidarbha, appealing to them to unite in support of statehood for Vidarbha. He has accused the state’s policy makers of ignoring Vidarbha.
He stated that Ankisa village of Gadchiroli is 1,400 km away from Mumbai. Even in Uttar Pradesh, the farthest point is not beyond 600 km from the state capital, he wrote.
Last week, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan had said that smaller states were not feasible while bigger states like Maharashtra were more economically viable. Mr Muttemwar said that newly formed states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal achieved prosperity and growth in last one decade, while Vidarbha is reeling under acute backwardness. He alleged that this is a result of step-motherly policies of Maharashtra government.
Muttemwar rued that political support provided by Vidarbha has never been reciprocated. “The Congress leaders from (Vidarbha) region were given secondary positions, and the region is paying the price for supporting Congress,” his letter said.
He claimed that the statehood demand is ignored because Congress legislators are afraid to take a public stance. He also clarified that he wasn’t raising the demand because he was not inducted in Cabinet.
“On the contrary, my stance has cost me dearly,” the seven-time MP claimed.