Mayawati demands creation of Purvanchal

LUCKNOW: Chief Minister Mayawati has added to the demand of trifurcating Uttar Pradesh by asking the centre to move for the creation of Purvanchal (eastern-UP) also.

In yet another letter to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mayawati has said that given the backwardness and poverty in Purvanchal, it should also be carved out of UP as a new state.

Earlier she had written to the centre demanding the UP be trifurcated by creating western-UP and Bundelkhand as new states out of UP. Now she has added to the list by advocating the cause of Purvanchal also.

She has thrown the onus on the centre stating that the reorganisation of states lies in the domain of the centre and if the central government initiates the process her government would follow on the necessary steps.

Mayawati has said that her government would get the necessary resoultion passed in the assembly after the centre agrees to carving out of smaller states from UP.

Additional Cabinet Secretary Vijay Shankar Pandey said that Mayawati has in her letter mentioned that she had voiced the need for creating Purvanchal as a new state in a letter written to the centre in March 2008 also.

She stated that Purvanchal was a backward region on social and economic parameters and poverty was increasing in the region. She has reiterated her demand for a special financial package of Rs 80,000 crores to remove regional imbalances in the state.

Mayawati said that she has always been in favour of smaller states on the grounds that it is administratively better to govern them.

She said that UP was a very large state both in terms of population and area, therefore it is necessary to carve out smaller states for better governance and meeting the people’s aspirations. She said that after the centre give its consent for creating Purvanchal her government would immediately get the necessary resoultion passed in the assembly and forward it to the centre.