Cong a divided house over Vidarbha statehood demand

A delegation of four MLAs led by party MP from Nagpur Vilas Muttemvar on Thursday met the AICC committee on smaller states, headed by senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee, to plead their case for Vidarbha’s statehood. Later, the leaders also met party chief Sonia Gandhi and submitted a memorandum to her to concede their demand.

The AICC committee which, apart from Pranab, has as its members senior leaders Madhavrao Scindia, Motilal Vora and Manmohan Singh, however deferred the issue for further discussions on October 14 since it also wanted to give a hearing to a section of the party opposed to it.

Significantly, the committee has also decided to call party leaders from the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh, who, too, have raised the demand for a separate state.

The committee, however, gave in to the Vidarbha delegation’s demand that an AICC observer be sent to the region for an on-the-spot study on the state’s viability.

While Muttemvar has been at the forefront of the campaign within the party for a separate Vidarbha, there are several other leaders from the region who have expressed their disinclination for the proposal. A divided house doesn’t make the demand for Vidarbha as unanimous as it was initially being made out and former Rajya Sabha MP Srikant Jhichkar, along with a few other MPs from the state, have opposed the idea.

Former party MP and vice-president of the Maharashtra PCC Gurudas Kamath, though not from the Vidarbha region, has also opposed Vidarbha’s statehood. In a meeting with Sonia and other senior party leaders today, he submitted that the high command should also hear the views of those state leaders not in favour of a separate Vidarbha before formulating the party’s stand.