Bodos, Marathas feel the Telangana effect

New Delhi/Mumbai: Days after Parliament cleared the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh to carve out a separate Telangana state, the Centre on Wednesday set up an expert committee to study and examine the demand of a separate Bodoland state by bifurcating Assam.

Meanwhile in Maharashtra, a committee set up by the state government, and headed by industries minister Narayan Rane, has recommended providing 20 per cent reservation to the Maratha community in jobs and education without affecting the existing reservations of the OBC community. The BJP, however, has asked the state government not to take any decision in haste on the recommendations made by the panel.
On Wednesday, the Union home ministry set up an expert committee to examine the viability of granting statehood to Bodoland, by holding consultations with all sections of the society.
The committee will be headed by former Union home secretary G.K. Pillai, who had also served as joint secretary (Northeast) in the home ministry earlier in his career. The panel has been asked to submit a report in nine months.
The decision comes in the backdrop of several Bodo outfits intensifying their agitation demanding a separate state for the Bodo tribals.
The government had set up an autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council in 2003 by signing an accord after years of a violent agitation that had claimed several hundred lives.