BJP MLA sets up party for Vindhya statehood
The Vindhya region comprises Rewa, Satna, Shahdol, Singrauli, Sidhi and Anuppur districts in Madhya Pradesh.
A Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker from Maihar in Madhya Pradesh’s Satna on Tuesday floated a new political outfit called the Vindhya Janta Party to demand separate statehood for the region to be carved out of the central Indian state.
Narayan Tripathi, a four-time MLA from Maihar, said the new outfit will soon be registered as a regional party and will put up candidates on all 30 assembly seats in the Vindhya region in the upcoming state polls in December 2023.
The Vindhya region comprises Rewa, Satna, Shahdol, Singrauli, Sidhi and Anuppur districts in Madhya Pradesh.
The state BJP declined to immediately react to the development. “In the democracy, everybody has a right to form a party,” state president VD Sharma said. “The organisation’s senior leaders will take decision on the announcement of party by a BJP MLA.”
Tripathi has been raising the demand for Vidhya Pradesh for long and has accused the ruling dispensation in Bhopal of ignoring the development of the region in the eastern part of Madhya Pradesh. He had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February 2021, demanding statehood for Vindhya Pradesh.
Addressing a public meeting in Maihar on Monday night, Tripathi said: “It (the new party) will start with the 30 seats and will be expanded to all the districts and areas, which were part of Vindhya Pradesh before its merger in Madhya Pradesh. We will have to fight and win 30 seats.”
“The government will have to make Vindhya a state and Maihar a district. Injustice has been done to us. Our Vindhya has been taken away from us; we will take it back,” he said. “My only dream is the revival of Vindhya Pradesh because the development of our region and our future generations will happen only by creation of Vindhya Pradesh.”
The BJP had swept the Vindhya region in the 2018 assembly election. It won 24 seats out of 30 seats in the region, compared to 16 seats in 2013. Congress won the remaining six seats in 2018.
The Congress, which won 114 seats in Madhya Pradesh, was two short of majority in the assembly of 230 seats, but formed the government with the help of smaller parties such as Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and four independent MLAs. However, following a rebellion by Congress MLAs in 2020, the BJP returned to power and Shivraj Singh Chouhan became chief minister.
Despite winning 24 seats from Vindhya, Chouhan did not induct any leader from the region in the state cabinet. Girish Gautam, a BJP MLA from Deotalab in Rewa district, is the speaker of the assembly. Chouhan in Marchannounced Mauganj of the Vindhya region as a new district.
Tripathi was earlier with the Samajwadi Party but later joined the Congress and then the BJP. He was elected in the 2018 polls as a BJP candidate. He has a good hold in the Vindhya region and can upset political calculations for both the BJP and Congress in the assembly elections to be held later this year, political observers said.
“People in the Vindhya region want a separate state and his poll plank will have an impact in the election in the region,” said Jay Ram Shukla, political expert from Vindhya. “It will be interesting to see who else will join hands with Tripathi.”
“Some Congress leaders, who are not getting importance in the party, can join hands with Tripathi,” Shukla added. “A few BJP leaders can also join. If they come up with strong campaign, they can win a few seats.”
“We also want a separate state but it will be fulfilled by following a process and with support of the government,” said Rajmani Patel, Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Rewa. “Narayan Tripathi is trying to achieve his political aspirations by forming a separate party, but it won’t leave any impact on the upcoming election.”
The Aam Aadmi Party is also eying on Vindhya region after winning the mayoral seat in Singrauli.