Piqued Ranjit Deshmukh rides the Vidarbha bandwagon again

Once again finding himself in doldrums, former Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Ranjit Deshmukh is attempting the time-tried and tested formula of reviving the Vidarbha statehood issue to remain in the limelight.

Deshmukh was ousted from the post of MPCC president after the Congress' debacle in the recent Lok Sabha elections. Earlier, in 1998, when he was defeated in assembly election and found himself being neglected, Deshmukh had donned the robes of a champion for separate state of Vidarbha.

The Congress high command had noticed him and given him a berth in the legislative council. He was later made the MPCC president for the second time.

Deshmukh had subsequently asked for a Lok Sabha ticket from Ramtek constituency, but was passed by in favour of former MP late Shrikant Jichkar.

He had then reportedly asked to be accommodated in the upper house but his request was turned down. Another term in the legislative council after the present one ended this year, was also not acceded.

Out in the cold, the veteran Congress leader who had distanced himself from the Vidarbha Rajya Party (VRP) during the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections and made unsubstantiated statements to the effect that the Congress was committed to setting up a second commission for examining the demand for statehood to Vidarbha, is apparently annoyed at being ignored.

Not directly aligning himself with the VRP, Deshmukh has once again made a demand for separate statehood for Vidarbha.

Addressing a press conference here, Deshmukh said he had sought appointments with national presidents of all major political parties at Delhi on August 15 and 16 to request them to include the Vidarbha issue in their election manifestos for the ensuing Assembly elections in Maharashtra.

Deshmukh said, in the recently held 'Vidarbha "" Ek Chintan', a meeting of prominent pro-Vidarbha people at Nagpur, it was decided that he should call on all the national presidents of the prominent political parties. Similar letters were also sent to the state unit presidents of respective parties, he added.

Prominent among those whose appointments were sought included his party president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, BJP president Venkaiah Naidu, NCP president Sharad Pawar, JD (S) president Deve Gowda, Rashtriya Lok Dal president Ajit Singh, CPI general secretary A B Bardhan, CPI (M) supremo Harkishan Singh Surjit, Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav, Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K Chandrashekhar Rao, Shetkari Sanghatana chief Sharad Joshi and their state unit presidents. Within the Congress party, letters were also sent to AICC general secretary in-charge of Maharashtra Margaret Alva, Maharashtra chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde, and MPCC president Prabha Rau.

In the letter to these leaders, Deshmukh said, he had stressed that the overall developmental backlog of the Vidarbha region had crossed all limits and it was now impossible to remove it. "More than that there is no political will to achieve this goal," Deshmukh said.

Referring to Union minister of state for non conventional energy Vilas Muttemwar's statement made in Chhattisgarh on Sunday, "An issue of separate state of Vidarbha will remain alive till the formation of Vidarbha state," Deshmukh said, he would congratulate Muttemwar and at the same time appeal to all the MPs and MLAs of the Congress party to clarify their stand on the issue at the earliest.

Nagpur District Congress Committee president Baburao Zade was also present during the press conference.