By IANS,
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Thursday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to keep off “the internal affairs of the state” after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi demanded a central authority for development of Bundelkhand region.
“Any move to set up a central authority for special development of an area in a state would tantamount to direct interference in the internal affairs of the state,” Mayawati wrote in a letter to the prime minister, according to an official statement.
“Such a step could seriously affect centre-state relations,” she added.
The letter comes after Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi led a delegation of party leaders from this state and met the prime minister, demanding the creation of an independent central authority for comprehensive development of the economically backward Bundelkhand region.
Drawing the prime minister’s attention to the need for a special economic package for Bundelkhand, Mayawati also pointed out that her demand for a Rs.80,000 crore package for the region had been ignored by the central government.
She also argued that Uttar Pradesh cannot be compared to the northeastern states for which an independent central authority was created. “Unlike those states, we in Uttar Pradesh have an efficient and fully functional administrative set-up which can take care of its affairs,” she wrote in the letter.
“It would therefore be in the fitness of things for the centre to rise above party lines and release a special package for the development of Bundelkhand, so that the state government could undertake the desired development of the region,” she said.