BHOPAL: A ruling BJP legislator in Madhya Pradesh, who has been running a campaign for restoring the erstwhile ‘Vindhya Pradesh’ as a separate state, has now given an ultimatum to the state government. Narayan Tripathi, MLA from Maihar constituency in Satna district, has threatened to launch a new party and contest all 30 seats in the Vindhya region in the next Assembly elections if the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government doesn’t work towards carving out the new state by 2023.
“It was on April 4, 1948 that Vindhya Pradesh was founded, but later became part of MP. If the foundation for restoring Vindhya Pradesh isn’t laid by the government by 2023, we’ll form a new party and contest all 30 seats of the region. We’ll ensure the formation of a government in MP that will create the Vindhya Pradesh,” Tripathi said at a public event on Monday evening to mark the foundation day of the erstwhile ‘Vindhya Pradesh’.
On his appeal, residents of Maihar town lit up their houses with diyas to mark the occasion. Of the 30 Assembly seats in the region, the BJP had won 28 in the 2018 polls — its best ever tally. In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, too, the party had swept the region winning all five seats by big margins.
According to Satna-based political journalist Vishnukant Tripathi, “If at all Tripathi forms a new party, it will trouble both BJP and Congress. But it may hurt the saffron party more by eating into upper caste votes as the Maihar MLA is a powerful Brahmin politician.”
Who is Narayan Tripathi?
A powerful Brahmin politician, Tripathi, began his career in the Samajwadi Party. He later joined the Congress, only to decamp to BJP in 2015. In 2016 by-election, he retained the Maihar seat as a BJP candidate. In 2018, he again won the seat as a BJP candidate. BJP insiders claimed, Tripathi is raking up the Vindhya Pradesh issue to stay politically relevant. He fears neither the BJP nor the Congress will field him in 2023 assembly polls.
