Vid leaders to contest LS and Assembly polls

Nagpur: Several Vidarbha protagonists on Saturday staged a rally under the banner of ‘Vidarbha Nirman Mahamanch’, a conglomeration of many smaller outfits fighting for statehood. It started from Janata Square and ended at Mor Bhavan where over 50 activists representing various outfits participated.
The organizers declared that candidates under ‘Vidarbha Nirman Mahamanch’ would contest all seats in upcoming general and assembly polls on the statehood plank.

Some participants like Ram Nevle from the Vidarbha Rajya Andolan Samiti (VRAS) and Devendra Wankhede from Aam Admi Party’s (AAP) city unit flayed the BJP-Sena government under chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for ignoring the genuine and long pending demand of citizens here.

“The government has failed to fulfil promises made to the citizens here prior to 2014 Lok Sabha and assembly polls. The farmers’ community continues to suffer till date and were not getting minimum support price (MSP) as promised. A large number of youths are still waiting for the employment in the region,” said Nevle.

Other participants pointed out that the Vidarbha generates maximum power but gets a pittance as compared to western Maharashtra. “It leads to villages here remaining without power for over 12 hours a day. The government is also involved in exploitation of natural resources such water and forest here, but gives nothing to the region in return,” they said.

They accused the BJP-led government of betraying trust of people from the region by making tall promises. “Earlier, Fadnavis rallied hard or creation of separate Vidarbha, when he was an opposition MLA. Now as a CM, he doesn't utter a word about the issue. Those from western Maharashtra raised doubts over sustenance of Vidarbha after achieving statehood. But they are unaware of the fact that the region has ample amount of mineral and natural resources,” they said, adding that Vidarbha would be one of the progressive states of India.

(Reporting by Bikromjeet Mukherjee)