Unsure of OBC support, NCP cancels rallies, looks to Dalits
Rakshit Sonawane Posted online: Fri Mar 25 2011, 03:56 hrs
Mumbai : Jittery about the support from backward communities in the
forthcoming civic elections, the NCP has postponed its OBC rally twice
and started making overtures towards Dalits.
The Maratha-dominated party had planned a huge rally of OBCs in Pune
on March 6. The rally had been planned by the OBC cell of the NCP,
after OBC leader and PWD minister Chhagan Bhujbal (NCP) had organised
a show of strength in Pune through his social outfit — the Mahatma
Phule Samata Parishad. Bhujbal's rally was held after he had to
relinquish the deputy chief minister's post to Sharad Pawar's nephew
Ajit Pawar in the reconstitution of the cabinet after Ashok Chavan
quit as the chief minister over his alleged role in the Adarsh society
scam. It was Bhujbal's show of strength in Pawar's den.
Sources said the plan for holding the NCP's rally on March 6 was
backed by Bhujbal's detractors within the NCP (read the Maratha lobby)
to show that the party had enough backing of OBCs even without his
support. However, the rally had to be postponed to March 13 and then,
indefinitely.
"I don't know the reason for the postponement," NCP's OBC cell chief
Bhanudas Mali told The Indian Express. "I was asked by the party
(leaders) to postpone the date... the rally will take place in
presence of (Sharad) Pawarsaheb, but after I get the nod."
Meanwhile, Bhujbal's Samata Parishad has planned an OBC rally at
Mapusa in Goa on April 3. "We had initially decided to hold this rally
on March 27. But since there is a cultural event for tourists on the
same day, we have decided to postpone it by a week," Samata Parishad
leader and Bhujbal aide Dr Kailas Kamod said on Thursday.
The postponement of NCP OBC cell's rally is seen as an indication of
the party getting jittery over its OBC support-base. "With municipal
and ZP elections due in less than a year's time, the party does not
want to send wrong signals," a senior NCP leader said. He said RPI
leader Ramdas Athawale's visit to Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's
house and the appeal by the latter that Dalits and Shiv Sainiks should
unite against the Congress-NCP in the forthcoming polls had also sent
shaken the NCP, an ally of Athawale till the last Lok Sabha polls.
"To bring Athawale and Pawarsaheb together, a public felicitation was
organised for trade unionist Vijay Kamble on his 70th birthday at
Bandra on March 13," he said, "Athawale and Pawarsaheb had a closed
door meeting. Even at the public meeting Pawarsaheb and R R Patil
asked Athawale to reconsider his plans of shake hands with the Sena."
He said the NCP had now taken up the task of consolidating its
position among Dalits, OBCs and women. The NCP is also planning to
hold a rally of women members of local self-governing bodies at
Aurangabad in April.
Incidentally, the NCP and Congress are going to contest the local
polls against each other and are vying for credit for the announcement
of 50 per cent quota for women by the state government.
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