BSP draws Vidarbha battle lines.

(From The Statesman (India))

Nandu R Kulkarni in Mumbai Oct. 4. - Miss Mayawati is certainly making her presence felt in Maharashtra. If the Bahujan Samaj Party chief had earlier been quick to handpick all the Congress-NCP rebels, now by declaring her support for a separate state of Vidarbha, she has compelled all political parties to put the region on top of their campaign priorities. The region which has sixty-six Assembly seats, will certainly have a say on who gets to form the government after all. For the Cong-NCP combine, the stakes are very high considering of the 11 Lok Sabha seats, 10 went to the Shiv Sena-BJP combine in the May 2004 elections. …