Organisations For Smaller States Form Common Forum

Organisations agitating for the creation of separate states in different parts of the country have formed an All-India Coordination Committee to adopt a joint strategy for their common cause.

Madhya Pradesh Congress vice-president Vitthalbhai Patel, earlier a leader of the separate Bundelkhand Rajya Andolan, said yesterday that the decision to form the committee was taken at a conference of these organisations held on January 18 and 19 at Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh.

The participants stressed the need to adopt a joint strategy for the creation of separate states and the organisations resolved to launch peaceful agitations for the rights of the deprived regions, he said.

The representatives charged the government of adopting a step-motherly attitude towards the backward regions.The two-day meeting also decided to organise similar conferences in areas proposed as separate states and stressed that smaller states would make the country stronger, not weaker, he said.

Former Union minister Ajit Singh was chief guest at the conference, in which Suraj Mandal and Shibu Soren (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha), former Union minister Purushottam Kaushik (Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha), Mohanlal Singhal (Malavanchal) and representatives of Vidarbha, Poorvanchal, Uttarakhand and Telengana regions also participated. The coordination committee, having one representative from each of the agitating organisations, will meet in New Delhi soon, Patel added.