Lucknow, Sept. 30 -- Months before the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, the long-dormant demand for splitting the country's most populous state has suddenly returned to the political centre stage with the NDA allies not only backing the idea of smaller states, but also beginning to stake claims to the political leadership in the suggested states.

Though the issue of dividing Uttar Pradesh surfaces in some form before every state election, it had largely been dormant since 2011 when the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government led by Mayawati formally passed a resolution in the assembly advocating UP's division into four states.

The latest revival of the issue began when Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) president and panchayati raj mi...