Pankaja Munde (L) and Manoj Jarange-Patil.
Credit: PTI Photos
Mumbai: Amid the rift between Marathas and Other Backward Classes, the focal point of the reservation issue will be in Beed on 12 October, on the occasion of Dussehra, when two mega-rallies being planned.
Beed falls in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra.
Maratha reservation campaigner Manoj Jarange-Patil will be addressing a mammoth gathering at Narayangad on the day.
On the other hand, BJP’s Pankaja Munde, who hails from the OBC community, will hold her traditional annual rally at Bhagwangad in Beed.
Pankaja Munde, a former rural development minister, lost the 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls from the Parli seat to her cousin Dhananjay Munde, who is considered close to NCP President and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. After the loss, she was sidelined by her party in state politics.
Pankaja Munde likely lost the Lok Sabha polls owing to the reservation issue. She was fielded this time instead of her sister, Dr Pritam Munde.
Pankaja Munde lost to Bajrang Sonawane of Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP). She was later accommodated as an MLC. However, the rally is being seen as a major step ahead of Vidhan Sabha polls. “Our Dussehra is our tradition,” she posted on social media ahead of the rally.
Jarange-Patil will speak to a huge gathering of farmers and people from the Maratha community, but there will be no politics at the event. Jarange-Patil is expected to announce his future course of action in the run-up to the Assembly elections.
Over the last two years, the Eknath Shinde-led Maha Yuti government has opened two routes for Maratha reservation - as Maratha-Kunbi and Kunbi-Maratha under OBCs the the Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Bill, 2024, was passed in the state legislature, paving the way for 10 per cent reservation.
However, Jarange-Patil is insisting that the government declare all Marathas as Kunbis, implement the draft notification of ‘sage-soyare’, a Marathi term for ‘relatives from the family tree', which widens the scope of the quota, and is also demanding the withdrawal of cases against the agitators.