Muttemwar dares BJP MPs to resign over Vidarbha

Provoking the BJP to ask its MPs and legislators from Vidarbha to quit on the issue of “restoring” the statehood to the region, former Union minister and Congress MP Vilas Muttemwar on Friday said he too would resign from Parliament if the saffron party makes sacrifice for the cause. Mr Muttemwar, the sitting Lok Sabha member from Nagpur, is also the CWC member. He said the BJP has strongly pleaded for a Vidarbha state at its meeting in Bhubaneswar in 1996. “It has even passed a resolution in this regard. But when it came to power at the Centre if did not create the state under the pretext of ally Shiv Sena’s opposition. This was disclosed by L.K. Advani himself.” He said the NDA government had created Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh by bifurcating Bihar and MP without strong agitations. But on the Vidarbha issue, it has been playing an opportunistic role. Responding to questions, Mr Muttemwar said the Congress has never been supportive of the demand of a Vidarbha state despite the State Reorganisation Commission (SRC) favoured it. “We are not asking for a separate Vidarbha state but want to restore its statehood. Vidarbha was a state before the SRC was constituted but it had merged with Maharashtra. The demand of restoring the statehood was older than the demand of a separate Telangana state,” he claimed. He said the BJP has came out of the Jan Jagaran agitation for a Vidarbha statehood and is now fighting independently. This is weakening the cause. He said he has been working for the cause of restoring Vidarbha statehood and has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.