The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Nagpur, Devendra Phadanvis, today asserted that carving out a separate Vidarbha was the only way to ensure development of the region.
Participating in the debate on the motion of thanking the governor for his address to the joint session of the Maharashtra Assembly, Phadanvis alleged Vidarbha was being treated as a colony of Maharashtra and warned the “proud” people of the region would not tolerate it anymore.
Last week, Phadanvis completed a rath yatra to press demand for a separate Vidarbha state. However, Shiv Sena, the over two decade old electoral ally of the BJP, took a quite contrary view and declared that the party would launch an agitation for a united Maharashtra.
Phadanvis claimed the development backlog of Vidarbha was to the tune of Rs 40,000 crore and sought to know how Maharashtra would clear it when the state was burdened with debt worth crores of rupees.
“The martyrdom of 105 persons during the Samyukta Maharashtra movement was not for a united Maharashtra, but for inclusion of Mumbai into Maharashtra,” Phadanvis said.
The BJP MLA said Vidarbha became part of Maharashtra through a “pact” which had been violated several times. “In the last ten years, 85 per cent of the irrigation backlog came from the Centre.”
Phadanvis said the state government’s plan to set up private power projects in Chandrapur, the third most polluted city in the country, would “harm the farmers and agriculture activities”.