Mumbai, March 20: The Vidarbha issue figured in the Maharashtra Assembly today with Nagpur BJP legislator Devendra Phadanvis saying that carving out a separate state was the only way to ensure development of the region. Participating in the debate on the motion of thanking the Governor for his address to the joint session of the legislature, Phadanvis said Vidarbha was being treated as a “colony” of Maharashtra and warned the “proud” people of the region would not tolerate it anymore.
The development backlog of Vidarbha was to the tune of Rs 40,000 crore, he said, and sought to know how Maharashtra would clear it when the state was burdened with debt worth crores of the rupees. “The martyrdom of 105 persons during the Samyukta Maharashtra movement was not for a united Maharashtra but for inclusion of Mumbai into Maharashtra,” Phadanvis said.
The BJP MLA said Vidarbha became part of Maharashtra through a “pact” which has been violated several times. “In the last ten years, 85 per cent of the irrigation backlog came from the Centre.
” Phadanvis said the State Government”s plan to set up private power projects in Chandrapur, the third most polluted city in the country, would “harm the farmers and agriculture activity.” Hesaid 12,000 villages in Vidarbha have been declared scarcity-hit, but the Governor”s speech makes no mention of steps being taken to ease the hardships of the people in the cotton belt.
—–Agencies