Will take cognisance if Dalits, OBCs are troubled: BJP leader Pankaja Munde

Ahead of Maharashtra assembly polls, BJP leader Pankaja Munde on Saturday reached out to Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBC), vowing to take cognisance if they are troubled.

Munde, who lost the Lok Sabha polls on her home turf Beed district, the epicentre of Maratha protests led by activist Manoj Jarange, was addressing her annual Dussehra rally at Sawargaon Ghat, the birthplace of Sant Bhagwanbaba, a saint of her Vanjari community.

State agriculture minister and her cousin Dhananjay Munde and Laxman Hake, who had protested opposing any potential dilution of the OBC reservation, were among those who spoke at the rally.

Munde expressed her concerns over the rising caste schism within society.

If a vehicle hits someone, people ask the caste of the driver. People want to know the caste of a person who has committed brutality against a small child and killed her. We don't want such a society, she said.

The BJP national secretary warned that they would take cognisance if the poor,