Indian state votes to be broken up

State MPs led by a controversial “untouchables” leader have voted to break up India’s most populous state, a move that may prove an electoral headache for the national government.

The northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which is home to 200 million people and is more populous than Brazil, provides the biggest single bloc of seats in India’s parliament. A majority of India’s prime ministers have come from the state.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, a leader of lower caste Dalits, or “untouchables”, pushed through the vote in the state assembly yesterday to split the state into four parts, saying it was simply too big to be governable.

“Development of the state is possible only if it is divided into small states,” he said.

The vote still needs the approval of the national parliament – a headache for the Congress Party-led federal government, which is already dithering about recognising demands for a new state of Telangana in southern Andhra Pradesh state.

The break-up of Uttar Pradesh may be popular among different ethnicities in the state and benefit Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. Analysts say the BSP could win these new smaller states.

India has previously created new states, but governments are wary of ballooning demands from the myriad ethnic and linguistic groups in a country of 1.2 billion people.