Lucknow:
Hours after the Congress set the ball rolling for the creation of a new Telangana state, Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) chief Mayawati has reiterated that the large state of Uttar Pradesh should be split into smaller states to facilitate better governance.
Ms Mayawati, who is a former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, is a vocal champion of carving the state into four - Purvanchal, Bundelkhand, Awadh and Western Uttar Pradesh.
Her government, which preceded the current Samajwadi party government headed by Akhilesh Yadav, had passed a resolution in the Uttar Pradesh assembly for this.
The Samajwadi Party, however, opposes splitting the state.
"Central ministers from Uttar Pradesh should pressurize the Centre for the division of the state," Ms Mayawati said today.
She also supported the demand for separate statehood for Gorkhaland in Bengal and Vidarbha in Maharashtra.
Those demands have drawn new energy from the Congress Working Committee's endorsement yesterday of the decision to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh to create India's 29th state, Telangana.
Congress MP Vilas Muttemwar, who is a member of the Congress Working Committee, has written to party president Sonia Gandhi to press for the creation of Vidarbha. And in Bengal, moves to create Telangana have sparked off fresh protests in favour of Gorkhaland.