Lucknow The Uttar Pradesh cabinet on Tuesday cleared a proposal to split the state into four, 11 years after the hill state of Uttarakhand was carved out of it. At a press conference, chief minister Mayawati cited rising expectations of people in remote areas as well as better administration and development to justify the proposal. The four new states will be Poorvanchal (East UP), Paschhimanchal (West UP), Bundelkhand and Awadh (central UP). “Smaller states will not only meet local aspirations of people of various regions but will also give wings to development,” Mayawati said. The state Assembly will take up the proposal at its session starting November 21. “My government has always favoured smaller states as they can be better managed than bigger ones. UP is backward mainly because of its huge size. We feel smaller states can have better law and order and a balanced and all-round development,” she said, adding her Bahujan Samaj Party and her government had always backed reorganising the state. The chief minister charged that the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party never promoted development of UP, though it is the country's biggest state in terms of area and hosts 16% of its population. “Due to the wrong policies of these parties, UP did not have a balanced development, and it started lagging in the march towards development,” she stated. The Centre, Mayawati claimed, was apathetic. “UP has given the maximum number of prime ministers to the country but none of them have contributed to development of the state”, she asserted. As per the Constitution, reorganisation, division and renaming of states could be done only by Parliament. She said successive governments at the Centre failed to decide on dividing the state. The Centre, she said, has turned a deaf ear to the request for a R80,000-crore package for eastern UP and Bundelkhand. Mayawati said that going by procedure, the UPA government at the Centre should have cleared a proposal for UP's division in Parliament and sent it for the consent of the UP Assembly. “After waiting a long time when the Centre did nothing, my government finally decided to bring the proposal for dividing UP in the next Assembly session and send it to the Centre to put pressure on the UPA government,” she said. It may be mentioned that soon after coming to power in 2007, Mayawati had asked the Prime Minister to consider the division of UP, which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha and has an Assembly with 403 MLAs. Mayawati's move is being seen by political observers as a trump card to cash in on the sentiment in favour of small states in the western and eastern regions and the Bundelkhand area of the state during Assembly elections. “It is a strategic move on the eve of elections with an eye to gain political mileage and divert public attention from real issues like corruption and law and order,” said Ramesh Dixit, professor at Lucknow University.