The chief minister of India's Uttar Pradesh state has proposed the division of the populous¹ and politically influential² state into four parts.

印度北方邦首席部长建议将这个人口稠密的、有政治影响力的州一分为四。

Ms Mayawati said she would table a proposal for the division in the upcoming session of the state assembly.

The final decision on a new state lies with the Indian parliament. But the state assembly must also pass a resolution（决议） approving its creation.

India with its billion-plus people has 28 states.

Correspondents say Ms Mayawati's proposal is a politically astute³（机敏的） move ahead of the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh.

The plan is aimed at winning over people living in different parts of Uttar Pradesh who have been demanding separate states, correspondents say.

Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous state with 20 million people living in 75 districts. It has also produced a majority of the country's prime ministers.

'Popular demand'

Ms Mayawati has proposed splitting Uttar Pradesh, one of India's largest states, into four states of Avadh Pradesh, Purvanchal, Bundelkhand and Paschim Pradesh.

If there were to happen, Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 seats in the parliament, would lose its pre-eminent political status.

She said a resolution proposing the new states would be placed in the upcoming winter session of the state assembly, beginning next week.

"We expect a positive response [to the proposal] from the central government. The decision has been taken on popular demand," Ms Mayawati, who heads a government of her Bahujan Samaj Party, which represents the interests of Dalits (untouchables), said.

Ms Mayawati said her government had "always supported [Dalit leader BR Ambedkar's] ideology⁴（意识形态） of smaller states and smaller administrative⁵ units".

"We believe that smaller administrative units can be better managed in terms of law and order as well as administration."

Political analyst⁶ Smita Gupta said Ms Mayawati's move is a "cleverly crafted pre-election strategy" to win next year's state election.

"So she has decided⁷ to work on demands that have arisen from different parts of the state from time to time," Ms Gupta wrote in The Hindu newspaper.

"For instance, both the people of the prosperous（繁荣的） western part of the state as well as of the desperately⁸ poor and arid⁹（不毛的） Bundelkhand have, for many years, expressed a desire to break away from Uttar Pradesh."

Analysts¹⁰ say it will be difficult for the federal government to concede to the demand as it is already facing protests over the demands for the formation of a new state of Telangana in Andhra Pradesh.

With a population of 40 million, the proposed Telangana state comprises 10 of Andhra Pradesh's 23 districts, including the state capital and India's sixth most populous city, Hyderabad.