Uttar Pradesh Minister Om Prakash Rajbhar has said that the state will be divided into four parts after a caste census, reigniting a nearly two-decade-old debate on the division of the country’s most populous state.
Rajbhar , who has repeatedly proposed the idea of dividing poll-bound Uttar Pradesh into four new states — Bundelkhand, Purvanchal, Awadh Pradesh and Paschim Pradesh — claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “assured” him that the division of the state could happen after the caste census.
I spoke with the prime minister about this. “The state will be divided into four parts. “We want to assure you regarding the 27 per cent reservation. I asked him how we could move forward, and he replied, ‘I will conduct a caste census, and once we have counted the castes, there will be no difficulty,'” Rajbhar, whose party, the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) is in alliance with the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh, said during an event on September 20. Balyan, a two-time Lok Sabha MP who was a Union Minister in the second Narendra Modi government, said the division will help in building the high court and the All India Institute Of Medical Sciences Delhi (AIIMS) in the four states, which will eventually help the about 25 crore residents get speedy justice and medical treatment. She had argued the lack of development in Uttar Pradesh — the fourth-largest state in India — was based on its unwieldy size of 75 districts.
He (Modi) said, ‘Om Prakash ji, your point is justified, but some people are opposing it. And on the day the Purvanchal state is formed, if the chief minister is to be from any caste, then a Rajbhar’s son will become the chief minister,” Rajbhar, who comes from Purvanchal (eastern Uttar Pradesh), said. Uttar Pradesh minister and Nishad Party chief Sanjay Nishad called Rajbhar’s claim “misleading” and said his party was not in favour of any such furcation. The move, she had said, was agreed in the interest of providing better administration.
