Lucknow, Dec 18 (IANS) The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) will now rope in students of universities, colleges and other educational institutions to lead a campaign for the formation of Harit Pradesh, a proposed state comprising parts of western Uttar Pradesh, party officials said Friday.
The RLD is led by former union agriculture minister Ajit Singh.

As a part of its campaign RLD will organise meetings at educational institutions to solicit support from youth, who could assist the party in mounting pressure on the state government for carving out Harit Pradesh or Pashchimanchal, they added.

“Our party has planned a string of symposiums, conferences and meetings on campuses of educational institutions in parts of Uttar Pradesh, particularly its western region, for making the youth aware of poor development in Western Uttar Pradesh. Such programmes would definitely prompt them to support us and fight for the cause,” RLD state president Ram Asrey Verma told reporters here.

“We strongly feel it’s the youth who can lead the agitation for separate statehood and help western Uttar Pradesh get the benefits it deserves,” he added.

RLD officials said the party would start organising the programmes from next week. MPs of the party, including Ajit Singh and Jayant Chaudhary, would also participate in the programmes and address the students.

If Harit Pradesh is created, it will comprise 24 districts, 30 Lok Sabha seats and 150 assembly seats, with a Dalit population of 17-28 percent. The population of other backward castes (OBCs) like Jat, Lodh, Yadav would be about 30 percent, they added.