STATE lawmakers voted today to break up India’s most populous state, a move that may prove an electoral headache for a national government reeling from high inflation and corruption scandals.
Uttar Pradesh, which is home to 200 million and is more populous than Brazil, provides the biggest single bloc of seats in India’s parliament. A majority of India’s prime ministers have come from the state.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, a leader of lower caste Dalits, or “untouchables”, pushed through the vote in the state assembly to split the state into four different parts, saying it was simply too big to be governable.
“Development of the state is possible only if it is divided into small states,” Mayawati told reporters.
The vote needs the approval of the national parliament – a headache for the Congress Party-led federal government that is already dithering about recognising demands for a new state of Telangana in Andhra Pradesh state.
Mayawati’s move stole the thunder from the Congress party’s campaign to unseat her in the 2012 state election – a key test for Rahul Gandhi amid speculation he could take over as Congress party leader from his ailing mother, Sonia Gandhi.
A win for Mayawati in the state election could cement her reputation as a growing national leader representing Dalits, who account for around 16 per cent of India’s population.
It could also be a huge blow for the 41-year-old Rahul Gandhi, a possible prime ministerial candidate, before a national election in 2014.
The break-up of the state may be popular among different ethnicities in the state and benefit Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. Analysts say the BSP, which has a base of support among Dalits, could win these new smaller states.
India has 28 states and new states have been created in the past. A decade ago, Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar.
But governments tread cautiously in recognising new states, wary of ballooning demands from the myriad of different ethnic and linguistic groups in a country of 1.2 billion people.
