Unsure of OBC support,NCP cancels rallies,looks to Dalits

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.