Earlier picture of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde with Manoj Jarange Patil.
Credit: PTI Photo
Hours after Jalna-based activist Manoj Jarange-Patil closed doors for negotiations, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday reiterated the government’s commitment to provide reservation to the Maratha community and strongly pursue the curative petition in the Supreme Court.
“I have committed myself to provide reservation to the Maratha community. Both the Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar are committed to it,” he said.
Shinde’s comments came after he and his family performed Maha Ashtami puja at the DurgeDurgeshwari Navratri festival at Tembhi Naka in Thane that was started by his late mentor and firebrand leader ‘Dharmaveer’ Anand Dighe.
“I am assuring this from the pandal of the Goddess…we would do everything possible for the reservation to the Maratha community…I am a son of a farmer like you all, I am not going to give false assurances,” said Shinde.
“Please have some patience…give us some time, a lot of work is being done,” he said and urged the Maratha community people to refrain from any extreme step. “Please think about your mother father…your wife, kids…family…do take any extreme step,” Shinde said and condoled to death of two persons who had died by suicide demanding Maratha reservation.
“Facts are facts, I don’t want to get into the details now,” he said.
However, he added: “When Fadnavis was the Chief Minister (from 2014-19) reservation was given to the Maratha community. It was cleared in the Bombay High Court but unfortunately the Supreme Court struck it down.”
Blaming the erstwhile Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi, he said: “Perhaps facts were not presented (properly) in the Supreme Court.”
Shinde said that on 13 October, the government had filed a curative petition in the Supreme Court, which was admitted by a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud. “It will be listed in due course and our lawyers will present the facts before the court. It is a major window that we have got to present our case,” he said, hoping that the government's contention would be accepted.
Shinde also said that Justice Sandeep Shinde (Retd) - which was formed to decide the methodology to issue Kunbi certificates to the community members - has done a lot of work over the last one month.