No mention of Vidarbha statehood on Cong list of promises

In its election manifesto, the party has made a special mention of Vidarbha. It says, “The Congress was committed to addressing the regional imbalance in Vidarbha and that would be addressed through strengthening the Constitutionally-approved Statutory Development Board set up for the region in 2004.”

Over a decade ago, the state through a legislation decided to have separate statutory boards under the chairmanship of the state governor to address the problems of regional imbalances in Vidarbha, Marathwada and the rest of Maharashtra. The objective was to ensure that the governor controlled allocation of funds for irrigation in these backward regions.

However, former Congress minister Nitin Raut, who is from Nagpur (Vidarbha), has been demanding separate statehood for Vidarbha. Another former Union minister Vilas Muttemwar too has repeatedly agitated in support of the demand.

Former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said: “We are committed to the development of Vidarbha. We believe there is need to bring more reforms in the existing structure to ensure overall developmental growth in Vidarbha.”

Among all mainstream political parties in Maharashtra, BJP has always supported the statehood demand. Shiv Sena, however, never supported the theory, and neither did NCP and MNS.

The cotton growing belt of Vidarbha has seen maximum number of farmer suicides in the last 10 years.

A senior NCP functionary said, “Ideally, we are not in favour of division of Maharashtra. But we feel the Congress always gives more importance to allocation of funds to Vidarbha through statutory development board and neglects the agriculture problems.”