I am disappointed with this govt: Shrihari Aney

[related-post]

Why was Vidarbha left out despite the States Reorganisation Commission, 1955, proposing statehood?
Till Mumbai is in focus, there cannot be any separate state. It is largest economic centre for the nation. The party that controls Mumbai controls the finances of the country. It is BJP now. And the BJP knows it won Maharashtra after Vidarbha voted for it. The Congress had understood they had Mumbai because of Vidarbha. If you break Vidarbha, you lose control. The minute BJP, Congress or Shiv Sena feel they can win Mumbai without Vidarbha, they will be okay with separation.

You are aware that whenever you raise your Vidarbha pitch, there are consequences. There was an agitation last time during the Winter Session too.
I make these statements not only before a session but every day. Marathwada should get a separate statehood. I had said this a month and a half ago. The Shiv Sena protested then too.

But the consequences are rather serious?
The reason I gave up my advocate generalship was that I cannot bear to see the consequences of my action as leading to disrupting of the house… They had started stalling the budget session. If you do not allow the budget session to work, it would have caused great damage to the system.

The government has completed two years. What support have you got for your movement?
I am extremely disappointed with the government. I cannot even see 25 per cent of the total expectations fulfilled. There is great bureaucratic apathy towards the causes of Vidarbha and Marathwada. Somehow, the bureaucratic bent of the state has become an urban-economic-sustenance bureaucracy. It can understand the machine that is Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, but it cannot understand why the Naxal movement moves in Gadchiroli. Latur does not get water for 29 days. There is destruction there.

Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Telangana were carved out constitutionally within a legal framework. Do you foresee that?
They were not carved out as a result of a conducive legal recourse. Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh were carved out with little opposition. Jharkhand faced opposition from Bihar whereas Telangana became a seat of tremendous agitation involving violence. I do not want to see that in Vidarbha. A fast-track method would require violence and bloodshed, antagonism. But I also know that you can create a state through peaceful means.