Mumbai: The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government’s decision to meet Maratha leader Manoj Jarange Patil’s demands to be accommodated in the state’s Other Backward Class (OBC) quota has once again left one of its own ministers — the Nationalist Congress Party Ajit Pawar faction’s (NCP) Chhagan Bhujbal — miffed.
Following the government’s decision to grant Kunbi caste certificates to all eligible Marathas along with their entire families to avail reservation benefits, Bhujbal, food and civil supplies minister and an OBC leader, has called for a meeting of all OBC, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes leaders at his official residence in Mumbai Sunday evening.
Bhujbal has also called for OBC lawyers, intellectuals and grassroots workers to respond to the government draft decision on granting Jarange Patil’s demand with their objections.
Speaking to reporters Saturday, Bhujbal asserted: “One may think that the Maratha community has won. But I don’t think that is the case. One can’t change rules and laws by mobocracy.”
The government, he said, has called for suggestions and objections about the matter.
“In Maharashtra, those from the OBCs and open communities who are lawyers and who are well-educated should study all of this and send their objections. We should send objections to the government in lakhs. The karyakartas of the OBC community should also send their objections to the government. So that it understands that there is another side to it,” Bhujbal said.
मराठा समाजाच्या दबावाला बळी पडून सरकारने आज काही बेकायदेशीर आणि ओबीसींवर अन्याय करणारे निर्णय जाहीर केले. सरकार जरी दबावाला बळी पडले असले तरी आम्ही गप्प बसणार नाही. ओबीसी समाजावरील या अन्यायाविरोधात आम्ही जोरदार आवाज उठवणार आहोत. लवकरच ओबीसींच्या पुढील संघर्षाची दिशा ठरवली जाईल!… pic.twitter.com/ZoNSgea4mX
— Chhagan Bhujbal (@ChhaganCBhujbal) January 27, 2024
Jarange Patil called off the third phase of his agitation for a Maratha quota earlier Saturday, saying that the Eknath Shinde-led government has met all his demands and that it is a “historic win” for the Marathas. Shinde went to meet the Maratha leader, addressing a joint rally with him and feeding him juice to break Jarange Patil’s hunger strike protest.
Bhujbal has always been at odds with Jarange Patil, with the two leaders constantly heaping criticism against each other. The minister has frequently slammed Jarange Patil’s demand to accommodate Marathas in the OBC quota and has even spoken out against his own government for starting the exercise of finding Kunbi records among Marathas.
The Maratha community has been demanding quota in government jobs and education for several decades. In 2021, the Supreme Court struck down a separate quota for Marathas calling it “unconstitutional.” The state government then filed a review petition and a curative petition, and the matter is still in court.
Some Maratha leaders and historians claim that all Marathas have their origin in the agrarian Kunbi clan. The Kunbis get reservation under the OBC category.
Also Read: Why Backward Classes Commission resignations may be advantageous for Shinde govt amid quota backlash
‘This will not stand the test of law’
In the third phase of his agitation for a Maratha quota, Jarange Patil marched from his village at Antarwali Sarati in Jalna to Mumbai, with the crowd along him swelling every step of the way, only to decide to wait on the fringes of Maharashtra’s capital city for 24 hours, giving the Eknath Shinde-led government time to meet his demands.
Jarange Patil reached Vashi in Navi Mumbai late Thursday night with the intention of marching towards Mumbai the next morning. But he stayed put all day while the government made parleys to hold him off, assuring him of its commitment to grant a Maratha quota and preventing the protest rally from entering Mumbai.
By early Saturday morning, Jarange Patil declared that he would be calling off his protest as the state had met all his demands — at about 9.30 am, CM Shinde went to the protest site in Vashi, garlanded a statue of Maratha icon Shivaji and addressed the Marathas gathered there. He was also felicitated by Jarange Patil.
“I have come here out of my love for you,” Shinde told the crowd earlier in the day. “I always fulfil the promises I make. I can understand the pain of the poor Maratha families as even I am the son of a farmer family.”
The CM said that the state government has met Jarange Patil’s demands of granting reservation to the entire family of Marathas whose records prove that they were Kunbis, granting Kunbi caste certificates to those having Kunbi records, extending the term of a committee headed by retired judge Sandeep Shinde to find Kunbi records among Marathas and scrapping all cases filed against the quota protesters.
“My personal opinion is that this will not stand the test of law,” Bhujbal said. “Caste is determined by birth and not by a certificate. If these rules are applied to all, tomorrow some people may squeeze into the Dalit and the adivasi quota.”
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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