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Who wants a Vidarbha State?

The demand for a separate State of Telangana became a major issue in Andhra Pradesh during the recent Lok Sabha and Assembly elections there. A similar demand for a Vidarbha State was pitched as a major issue in the Assembly elections.

The demand dates back to the Sixties when Maharashtra was created as a separate State. Vidarbha and Marathwada, two economically-backward regions of the State, always complained of regional imbalances and political neglect. The demand for a Vidarbha State grew from these complaints. The issue was always politically manipulated by different factions of the ruling Congress and later on, by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena.

The Congress, in its recent official position, sent signals that it was not averse to the demand and promised economic packages for the region's development. The Nationalist Congress Party leader, Sharad Pawar, also supported the demand. The BJP had earlier supported it because it saw Vidarbha as a possible stronghold in the Nineties. However, it kept mum over the issue in the recent because of the Sena's opposition to the demand. The former chief of the Pradesh Congress Committee, Ranjit Deshmukh, who lost from Nagpur in the recent elections, has supported the demand in recent times. However, he does not enjoy any support in the region and only exploited the issue for lobbying within the Congress. The Bahujan Samaj Party made it a major campaign issue in its attempt to make inroads into the State.

In our survey, we asked the voters if they new about this demand and if so, what they felt about it. Our data suggests that people in Maharashtra, in general, and in Vidarbha, in particular, do not support the demand for a separate State. Nearly half the people from Vidarbha region had not heard of the demand and around one-third of those who had heard about it considered it unjustified. In the survey, only about 11 per cent of the people in the entire State supported the demand. This is perhaps why no party has been able to politically exploit the issue.

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