Bundelkhand statehood in limbo amid political silence

In a modest, time-worn office at Jhansi's Kacheri Chauraha, advocate Bhanu Sahay is all fire and brimstone at the incumbent Lok Sabha members from the Bundelkhand region. He accuses them of "reneging" on their commitment to champion the cause of a separate statehood.

- ARCHIS MOHAN

Sahay, along with his associates of the Bundelkhand Nirman Morcha, firmly believes that the creation of a Bundelkhand state, comprising seven districts each from Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, is the panacea for the region's problems water scarcity, poverty, lack of industrial development, and migration.

Ahead of the polling on May 20 for the four Lok Sabha seats in UP's Bundelkhand regionJhansi-Lalitpur, Hamirpur, the Jalaun, and Banda Morcha is campaigning fervently, urging voters to either reject three of the four incumbent MPs or opt CONS for NOTA (none of the above) as WAT Jhan a sign of The protest. only one spared is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Hamirpur MP Pushpendra Chandel as he has consistently voiced "the need to create a separate state of Bundelkhand" since his tenure in the Lok Sabha began in 2014.

In Sarwan village, situated off the Jhansi-Babina road and some 23 km from the city, adopted by the local MP as part of the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, villagers are sceptical about whether a separate Bundelkhand state would bring any tangible change to their lives.

They lament the inaccessibility of their pubsi & Hamirpur lic representatives (from the gram pradhan to the MP), the scarcity of water for irrigation, having to dig borewells 21 metres or even deeper to find water for their wheat and groundnut crops, the menace of "stray animals" threatening their crops, and the unreliable water supply from the Jal Jeevan Mission. While power supply is sporadic, it has improved over time, and the availability of foodgrain under the Garib Kalyan Yojana is consistent.