By IANS
New Delhi : The ruling Congress’ move to form a second States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) appears to have opened up a Pandora’s box with the clamour for separate statehood from different groups getting louder even as it has led to fissures in the party in poll-bound Andhra Pradesh.
Congress leaders from the Telangana region Monday threatened to resign en-masse if the government goes ahead with the SRC, which they claim is just a delaying tactic to avoid granting statehood to the impoverished north-western region in Andhra Pradesh.
However, Congress leaders from other states have already started reaching the national capital to reiterate their demands for separate statehood for their respective regions.
The Left parties, which support Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government from outside, are against creation of smaller states and have warned the government against going ahead with such a move.
The news of a second SRC being considered to look into the demand for Telangana has kicked off a political storm in Andhra Pradesh, where state elections are due next year.
The Congress, which went to the 2004 polls along with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) – a party formed to push the Telangana movement – on the poll plank of separate statehood, is facing serious trouble in the region.
People in Telangana claim that the region has remained underdeveloped over the years because successive governments in Hyderabad and Delhi suppressed the rights and hopes of the people there.
The Congress leaders from the region claim that any move to delay the creation of Telangana would damage the party’s prospects in the state in the upcoming assembly and general elections. Of the total 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, 17 fall in the Telangana region.
Those against creation of a separate Telangana, led by Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, maintain that creation of a new state would aggravate the Maoist rebellion in the region. They also say that smaller states are beset by political instability, which would in turn slow their progress.
However, those in favour claim it would be easier to control a Maoist rebellion in a smaller state and that the progress of a state is not linked to its size or political stability.
Telangana was a state between 1948 and 1956 before being merged with the coastal Andhra region to form Andhra Pradesh.
The Left parties have not supported the Congress move to form another SRC.
“It will open a Pandora’s Box,” said Narayana, Communist Party of India’s Andhra Pradesh state council secretary. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has also said it would oppose any move to create smaller states.
But news of a second SRC has rekindled hopes of separate statehood for other groups, including a separate Darjeeling state, Bundelkhand and Poorvanchal.
The Gorkha National liberation Front (GNLF), which is fighting for separate statehood for the Darjeeling Hills, has said a second SRC should look into all demands other than Telangana and Vidarbha in Maharashtra.
Congress leaders from Uttar Pradesh met Manmohan Singh last week to demand a separate Bundelkhand state while party leaders from Rayalaseema region in Andhra Pradesh have said they would now clamour for a separate state too.
There are also demands to create Harit Pradesh in western Uttar Pradesh and Poorvanchal in the eastern region of the state.
The first state reorganisation commission, set up by the Jawaharlal Nehru cabinet in 1954 under Justice Faizal Ali, recommended the creation of new states on linguistic grounds. One of its members, K.M. Panicker, had sought the bifurcation of Uttar Pradesh, but was ruled out by the then central government.
In 2000, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance government approved the creation of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.