Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has charged the Union government with trying to delay her plan to divide the State into four parts and reiterated that her government had sent a resolution passed by the Vidhan Sabha to the Centre after her letters to the Prime Minister evoked no response.
“The power to create new States is vested with the government of India,” she told journalists here on Tuesday.
The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet's approval for the division was obtained on November 15.
Referring to the Union Home Ministry's letter seeking some clarifications on the resolution passed on November 21, Ms. Mayawati accused the Centre of sticking to its old policy “of leaking the letter to the media even before it was received by the government.”
Clarifying that the resolution had not been returned, she said the Centre's letter violated constitutional provisions. “The letter had not asked for information on the framing of a new law and is not in accordance with the powers of the President of India and the Uttar Pradesh Legislature.” The State had no role in the creation of new States, she said.
A detailed reply would be sent, she said, urging the Centre to act on the Assembly's resolution in view of the “people's sentiments favouring the reorganisation of Uttar Pradesh into four States.”
The Centre should follow the procedure adopted for the creation of Uttarakhand: the Assembly passed a resolution on April 24, 1997, which was sent to the Centre. “Following this, the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 1998, was presented in Parliament and sent to the State. On March 30, 2000, another resolution was sent to the Centre.”
Under Article 3 of the Constitution, she argued, a Presidential reference has to be sought and sent to the State legislature for approval. “But it appears that instead of acting on the Assembly resolution, the Centre was delaying the proposal and was perhaps not serious about the issue.”
With Ms. Mayawati blaming the Centre, the plan to divide the State into Purvanchal, Bundelkhand, Avadh Pradesh and Pashchim Pradesh is emerging as a politically sensitive issue.
At a meeting of the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party's Muslim-Kshatriya-Vaishya workers in Lucknow on Sunday, Ms. Mayawati criticised the Centre for its silence on the resolution. She urged the BSP cadre to give the Congress and other Opposition parties a befitting reply in the Assembly elections.
