Onus on Centre, Maharashtra govt to give hope to new generation on quota issue: Sharad Pawar

Sharad Pawar. Pic/PTI

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Pawar Tuesday said the Union and the Maharashtra governments have the responsibility of giving hope to the new generation on the issue of reservation to different communities, which has become a "serious" matter.

Pawar's statement came in the backdrop of the ongoing agitation by the Maratha community in the state seeking reservation in government jobs and education under the OBC category.

"The Centre and the state have the responsibility of giving hope to the new generation on the issue of reservation which has become serious (matter), be it reservation to Maratha, Dhangar, Lingayat or Muslim (communities)," he said.

The former Union minister was addressing a programme marking the culmination of 'Yuva Sangharsh Yatra' undertaken by NCP MLA (Sharad Pawar group) Rohit Pawar, newswire PTI reported.

The yatra covered a distance of 800km in a span of 32 days and passed through 20 talukas and 400 villages across 10 districts of Maharashtra, said the Rajya Sabha member.

The yatra concluded on the day when Sharad Pawar turned 83.

The purpose of the yatra was to "awaken" the Centre and the state government if they are not discharging this duty (of providing quota to different communities), he maintained.

Earlier, Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra legislative assembly Vijay Wadettiwar on Tuesday demanded the state government to carry out a caste-based census on the lines of Bihar.

He was speaking in the assembly during the ongoing winter session of the state legislature here.

Also read: CM Shinde was ready for survey, Fadnavis wasn't: Maharashtra Backward Class panel member days after resigning

"The Maharashtra government should carry out a caste-wise census in the state on the lines of the Bihar government. We are not opposed to any particular community getting benefits of quota," he said.

"The census should find out how backward people are there in every community in the state," he said.

In October, the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar released findings of its caste survey which revealed that Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) constitute a whopping 63 per cent of the state's total population.

Ever since the Bihar caste survey was out, the national leaders of the Congress, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, have been pressing for a caste census in the country.

In the run-up to the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi had described caste census as an "X-ray" which will reveal the proportion of the OBCs, Dalits and tribals in the population. (With inputs from agencies)