Formation of Telangana fraught with consequences : Karat

Dubbing the decision to form a separate Telangana state as a "short sighted move" by the Congress with its eyes on Lok Sabha polls, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat has said the move would lead to a string of demands for smaller states harming the country's federal structure.

"People's sentiment in Telangana region is in favour of a separate state. But in the long-term perspective the blow it will deal to the democratic, federal structure will be serious," Karat wrote in his column in the party's Malayalam daily 'Deshabhimani'.

Tracing briefly the history of struggles for linguistic states in the country after independence, Karat said the undivided Communist Party had taken a prominent role in those campaigns including the agitation for the Andhra Pradesh state.A tract penned by Communist stalwart P Sundarayya titled "Visala Andhra" had been the hallmark of that movement, he said.

The demands for new states also involved "regional identity" politics which would be exploited bourgeois parties to establish their spheres of influence, he said.

Formation of smaller states would also have adverse economic and political fallout as their availability of resources would be rather limited.

The Centre could easily dominate over the smaller states as in the case of the north eastern region without ensuring them greater economic or political autonomy, he said. Also the corporates and vested interests could exploit the smaller states far more easily than the bigger ones formed on the linguistic basis, the CPI(M) leader added.