UPA government has no plans to create new states

NEW DELHI: The United Progressive Alliance government has no plans to create more states during its remaining tenure in office. The Congress leadership and government took a considered view on the matter after reviewing renewed demands and agitation for creating new states, a leader said. The leadership is also reluctant to set up a second State Reorganisation Commission (SRC) to look into demands for new states, even though some sections of Congress are mounting pressure for it.

"The UPA-II government has no plans to create any more new states. Telangana has been a special case. The demand for it is half a century old, with well-defined historic, cultural and economic reasons. The renewal of demands for new states is not unexpected. We are hoping to deal with demands and agitation through administrative and political steps", said a leader who is part of Congress' and the government's top decision-making teams.

Following the political nod to Telanaga last week, Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, west, east and southern parts of Uttar Pradesh, Gorkha-dominated region of West Bengal and Karbi-Anglong and Bodo areas of Assam have witnessed agitation for new states. It is also no secret that a section of Congress leaders support the creation of Vidarbha and dividing UP into three smaller states, even as Mayawati insists on splitting UP into four new states

Indicating the kind of political and administrative steps the Centre may be contemplating in certain cases, a source said, "the Centre is already negotiating with representatives of the Gorkhaland movement on the granting more administrative powers to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA)". But in some cases like the Bodo agitation in Assam, the Centre has given the go ahead for the state administration to contain the agitation through political and administrative means.

On the possibility of setting a 2nd SRC to consider fresh demands for new states, a government source said: "There are only eight more months for the general elections. We think it will be proper for the next government with a fresh mandate for a full-term to take a considered view on the matter. At the same time, we will see how the issue plays out in the coming weeks, especially in Parliament when the decision to give Telangana state is debated". The source, however, conceded, that some Congress leaders are pressing for a 2nd SRC as a "way of sending a political message before the next Lok Sabha polls". In a TV interview senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh recalled his party's 2002 stand for a 2nd SRC and said it was for the Centre to take a final decision. BJP chief Rajnath Sing too demanded a 2nd SRC.

The first SRC, set up in 1953, submitted its report in 1955. Incidentally, many states were created purely on linguistic grounds even though the first SRC had favored "balanced considerations of many more factors" like social, economic and regional aspirations. The subsequent creation, without SRC, of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and now Telangana has proven that linguistic division was not the only yardstick for demanding a new state.