Advani shares dais with Maoist balladeer Gadar

By IANS

New Delhi : It is not every day that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani shares the dais with Maoists. But Thursday was one such day when he stood alongside noted Maoist balladeer Gadar.


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Gadar was here with 500 artists to dance and sing at Jantar Mantar in the vicinity of Parliament House to press the demand for a separate Telangana state. Though they did not announce their affiliation, the red colour was apparent – in their apparel, their songs, their gestures.

Sharing the dais with the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate was another artist and film actor Raja Bundela, leading the separate Bundelkhand movement as also those seeking Harit Pradesh, Vidarbha and other separatists.

A little distance away stood young Gorkha boys and girls pressing for their old demand to carve out Gorkhaland from the Darjeeling region of West Bengal.

Advani assured them: “The greatest moment of my life was when as the home minister in the NDA government I got the resolution passed in parliament to carve out a separate Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.”

Asking the current United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to bring in the bill for a separate Telangana in this session of parliament, he said: “The BJP considers your demand as just and proper and we will fully support your demand and hope it will be met soon.”

Advani rejected the Congress suggestion for setting up a second States Reorganisation Commission (SRC), saying: “I said the first SRC was on the basis of language. Now language is no more the basis of link. Now there is culture. If that will become the basis for making states, then there will be a demand from every district” (for a separate state). No, I don’t favour a second SRC.

The first SRC under Justice Fazle Ali was set up by the first prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru in the early 1950s. It had recommended reorganisation of states on the basis of language. Andhra Pradesh was created then, carving out Telugu speaking regions from Tamil Nadu as well as merging the Telangana region with it. Since then the demand for a separate Telangana has been simmering.

Before the 2004 general elections Congress leaders from Telangana had urged their national leadership to take note of the separate Telangana demand. Thereafter the Congress Working Committee (CWC) had recommended the setting up of a second SRC to study demands for separate states emanating from different parts of the country. A letter to this effect was sent to the then home minister L.K. Advani.

On Thursday, G. Venkataswamy, the deputy leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha, Telangana Rashtra Samiti MPs and Republican Party MP Ramdas Athawale were also present to lend their support to the demand for a separate Telangana.

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