Quota protests turn violent in Pune, stone pelting in Solapur; Maratha leaders accuse CM of making false promises.
Mumbai: Fresh protests erupted across Maharashtra as quota-seeking Marathas took to the streets once again Monday, despite Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ weekend efforts at assuaging the angry community.
In Pune district, protestors vandalised buses and blocked roads, while in Solapur, where Maratha leaders had called for a bandh Monday, agitators pelted stones, prompting police to resort to a lathi-charge.
While Maratha community leaders disassociated themselves from the violence, they slammed the chief minister, who has promised to hold a special legislative session on the issue, saying his assurances were mere political eyewash.
Opposition parties and the BJP ally, the Shiv Sena, also stepped up pressure on the BJP government despite attending an all-party meeting on the issue that Fadnavis had called Saturday.
“The chief minister is known to give false assurances. He doesn’t want the issue to move forward and we don’t believe his word. We will keep protesting for our demands,” Nanasaheb Kute, a Maratha Kranti Morcha leader, said.
He, however, insisted that all protests organised by leaders of the Maratha Kranti Morcha across the state, even Monday, were completely peaceful and non-violent.
“We don’t know these people pelting stones and torching vehicles. They are definitely not from our community. All protests organised by us are completely peaceful. For example, we had a peaceful protest march in Pune Sunday. There are andolans going on at Parli and Aurangabad too.”
The Maratha Kranti Morcha is an umbrella organisation of different Maratha organisations in Maharashtra.
Maharashtra’s Maratha community, which comprises 32 per cent of the state’s population, has been protesting demanding reservation in government jobs and education. The community held 58 silent marches across the state between August 2016 and August 2017.
The protests surged last week, turning violent at a number of places. The government had promised to provide 16 per cent reservation to the community but the Bombay High Court scrapped the move. Currently, the state backward class commission is working on a report to prove the social and economic backwardness of the community and its need for reservations.
A weekend of reconciliation
Directly under fire from the protesters, who have been demanding his resignation, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis Saturday held an all-party meeting to discuss the issue. He promised to hold a special session of the legislature once the State Backward Class Commission (SBCC) submitted its report.
He also assured the Maratha community that the government will go ahead with a planned mega recruitment drive, in which it plans to hire 72,000 employees, only after discussing it with the community.
The recruitment exercise is being seen as the trigger for the recent protests, with Marathas saying that any reservation given by the court at a later date will not make sense if the government hires so many employees now. Fadnavis has assured that the government will keep aside 16 per cent of the total positions pending the court’s decision.
On Sunday, the CM met a few leaders from the Maratha community led by Maharashtra Swabhimaan Paksh founder Narayan Rane, who is a Rajya Sabha MP and an NDA ally.
Maratha leaders from across organisations, however, held another meeting in Latur to discuss future plans of the campaign.
Pravin Gaikwad, leader of Sambhaji Brigade, a Maratha outfit, said, “The leaders who went with Rane are not the authorised leadership of the Maratha protests. We don’t even know who they are. Their names weren’t revealed.” The real leaders of the agitation, the Maratha Kranti Morcha members, were in Latur for their meeting, he added.
Maratha leaders have decided to continue the campaign in various forms at the district and taluka levels until August 9.
Shiv Sena ups ante
The Shiv Sena, a BJP ally, stepped up pressure on the Fadnavis administration, with party chief Uddhav Thackeray saying that the government should not ideally wait for the SBCC report.
The Sena, along with the Congress, and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had attended the all-party meeting Saturday. All the parties later held internal meetings on the issue.
Following a meeting with Sena legislators, Thackeray said, “Today’s administrators for any issue either form a committee or say that the issue is under the court’s jurisdiction. My opinion is that everyone should come together unanimously, take a decision and send a request to the Centre. All parties have anyway agreed to have a special session of the legislature. But the government should not wait for the report of the backward class commission for a decision.”
NCP leaders Ajit Pawar and Chhagan Bhujbal met the chairman of the backward class commission requesting that the report be fast-tracked, while Congress leaders handed over a memorandum on the issue to the governor.