After Telangana, a demand for creating a Gondawana-Vidharbha new state is being made by the Congress leaders from Vidarbha suggesting that the region cannot see bifurcation of AP silently.
If the Centre creates a Telangana state before the Lok Sabha elections then it also has to create a Vidarbha state as barring the Shiv Sena and the MNS no major political party in Maharashtra is opposing the demand, they said. They claimed that AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik, CWC member Vilas Muttemwar, Datta Meghe, Marotrao Kowase — all sitting Lok Sabha members from the region — and former MP Naresh Puglia met senior party leaders A.K. Antony, P. Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Digvijay Singh, Motilal Vora and Kamal Nath to press the demand of the separate Vidarbha. According to them, a new Gondawana-Vidharbha will be effective as Betul, Chhindwara, Seoni and Balaghat districts in Madhya Pradesh are closer to Nagpur than Bhopal. They can be a part of the Gondawana-Vidharbha new state. In a related development, the Vidarbha Congress leaders have decided to hold a “chintan shivir” either at Sevagram near Wardha or in Akola on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
“Congress leaders from the region, including MPs, legislators, DCC chiefs, taluka Congress chiefs, office-bearers of the frontal organisations, will be invited,” they said.