OBC Census Boycott Gains Pace; Wadettiwar Warns of Agitation

Nagpur: Threatening a statewide agitation if Centre fails to include a separate Other Backward Classes (OBC) column in second phase of national census, Congress MLA Vijay Wadettiwar on Tuesday said OBC organisations across Maharashtra have begun a boycott of ongoing enumeration exercise and that he resolved to go to jail if Modi govt chooses to register cases against protesters. Speaking in Nagpur, Wadettiwar said first phase of the census was ending on June 14 without any provision for OBC enumeration, and that central govt had only promised to include the column in phase two. He said that assurance rang hollow. "Modi govt will not include the OBC column. OBC numbers will never be known to the country and OBCs will never get what is rightfully theirs. The PM has given speeches saying he will conduct a separate OBC census, but if that was the intention, why was the column not included?" said Wadettiwar. He said boycotts were already underway in Bhandara and that his own constituency, Bramhapuri, had seen significant non-cooperation with enumerators.On what the boycott sought to achieve, Wadettiwar said the demand was proportional representation. "Our position is simple: jis ki jitni sankhya bhari, us ki utni hissedari (The more the number, the more the representation). We want our share in the budget, in concessions, in scholarships and in everything else, in proportion to our population. For that, the census must count us." He said a Maharashtra-wide OBC meet had been called in Nagpur on June 20 to decide the next course of action, and that meetings in Delhi and other cities were also being planned. Asked whether administration could register cases against those boycotting, Wadettiwar dismissed the threats. He said, "Let them file cases. Let them send us to jail. We are ready for that. Include our column and we are ready to cooperate. If the govt's intention is to deny us our rights, we are prepared to go to jail for this cause." Taking on govt's Ujjwala scheme, Wadettiwar said subsidy on LPG cylinders had been cut from nine per year to four. Wadettiwar said, "Congress took women from chullah to the gas stove. This govt is taking them back from the gas stove to chullah." Responding to a question about BJP minister Girish Mahajan attending a programme in Amritsar and allegedly calling for martyr status to be conferred on Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Wadettiwar said the demand was indefensible. He said Operation Blue Star was a necessary action given the armed mobilisation that took place at the Golden Temple at the time, and that without it India's territorial integrity would have been at risk. Wadettiwar said, "Those who have not studied the situation have no business commenting on it."