Separate state after agitations dangerous: Omar, Vilas demands

Omar said that it was dangerous to carve out new states after agitations

As the Congress moved closer to a decision on Telangana issue, UPA ally and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today cautioned it was "dangerous" to carve out new states after agitations amid fresh statehood demands in other parts of the country.

In a ripple effect of Telangana, Senior Congress leader Vilas Muttemwar pressed for creation of Vidarbha state out of Maharashtra and wrote to party President Sonia Gandhi, saying this demand was "older and stronger" than that for carving out Telangana from Andhra Pradesh.

Omar, Working President of the J and K National Conference, while voicing his reservations on the Telangana statehood issue said it could act as an incentive to those agitating for similar demands elsewhere in the country.

"It is fine that you have to create Telangana but don't do it piecemeal. Telangana will be created on the basis of agitations. This way the agitations are being incentivised," Omar told reporters in Srinagar.

He said giving in to the demand of creating a separate state in the backdrop of an agitation was a "dangerous thing".

"An impression is going out that an agitation can lead to creation of a new state, be it in Bundelkhand, Maharashtra, Gorkhaland or in our state. What will you tell people of Jammu -- agitate for seven or eight years and you will get a separate state? This is a dangerous thing," he said.

The Chief Minister said the job of creating new states should be entrusted to the States Reorganisation Commission. "If there is a need to create new states, the job should be entrusted to the States Reorganisation Commission."

In a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi, Muttemwar said, "now when the Telangana state has been agreed to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh, people of Vidarbha will have genuine resentment if their similar demand for creation of separate Vidarbha state is not (not) simultaneously agreed to."

Muttemwar, a seven-term Lok Sabha member who represents Nagpur, expressed apprehensions that if the demand of the people of Vidarbha is not accepted at this juncture, "they will grievously and genuinely will grievously and genuinely feel badly neglected and may resort to violent agitations."

Besides Vidarbha, the Telangana issue has opened the floodgates to similar demands for creating a separate Gorkhaland in West Bengal, Bodoland in Assam and carving out Harit Pradesh from Uttar Pradesh.