May 1 to be observed as black day in Vidarbha: Aney

Yavatmal: Separate Vidarbha leader Shrihari Aney received a rousing welcome on his maiden visit to his home district after resigning from the post of advocate general of Maharashtra. Aney was received at Netaji Chowk by former MP and pro-Vidarbha leader Jambhuwantrao Dhote. He was taken to Lok Nayak Bapuji Aney Vidyalaya in a procession where Aney was scheduled to address a public rally. The public meeting organized under the aegis of Vidarbha Rajya Aghadi was presided over by Dhote while former MP Rajabhau Thakre, ex MLAs Vijayatai Dhote and Divakarrao Pande were also present.
In his two hour long speech, Aney made a scathing attack on the leaders of Western Maharashtra, who, he alleged had spread wrong information about Vidarbha’s statehood demand. He said that Maharashtra Day would be observed as black day in Vidarbha.
Aney said that there were four major points on which the leaders of Western Maharashtra were trying to mislead the people. “They say there is no demand from the people for Vidarbha for statehood and that leaders of Vidarbha are incapable of substantiating the demand, if any. They also claim that the state is not economically feasible and that it would emerge as a Hindi speaking state, causing trouble for Marathi speaking residents,” he said.
Aney drew attention to the long drawn demand for statehood in his speech. “It was a part of CP & Berar and a resolution was unanimously passed in the CP & Berar Assembly for the statehood of Vidarbha in 1948,” Aney said, adding that Vidarbha region was later merged with the then Mumbai State on November 1, 1954.
“In fact, there was no Maharashtra state. So where does the justification of the so called pro-Maharashtra leaders to deny statehood to Vidarbha come from,” Aney asked.
He also drew on Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s thoughts on smaller states to support the demand for statehood. Aney said that Ambedkar in his book ‘Thoughts of Linguistic States’ advocated four smaller state carved out of Maharashtra, namely, Vidarbha, Marathwada, Konkan (Rest of Maharashtra) and Mumbai.
Aney also challenged the state government’s decision of a referendum across the state in which if 51% of the population voted against Vidarbha, the demand would not be considered anymore.
While putting light on the future action plan Aney said that May 1 would be observed as black day and flag of Vidarbha would be hoisted all over the region on that day. “We have to bring pressure on the BJP led government at the centre and the next three years will be crucial for the movement,” Aney said. He also said that the election manifesto of BJP would be set on fire on Maharashtra Day.