Mumbai: Describing it as the “last agitation” and "last chance for government", Maratha reservation campaigner Manoj Jarange-Patil launched yet another fast-unto-death demanding the issuance of Kunbi certificates and implementation of the draft notification of the ‘sage-soyare’, a Marathi term for ‘relatives from the family tree', which widens the scope of the quota.
This is the seventh hunger strike that Jarange-Patil is undertaking in the year 2023-24.
The hunger strike comes days before the announcement of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections, which is expected around mid-November.
In the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP-led Maha Yuti alliance suffered a dent in Maharashtra because of the Maratha reservation demand and the OBC resistance to it.
Jarange-Patil has stationed himself at his village Antarwali Sarathi in Ambad tehsil of Jalna district from where he began the agitation on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday.
The agitation comes as a major challenge to the Eknath Shinde-headed Maha Yuti government.
“What Maratha community is asking…they are not giving,” Jarange-Patil said and lashed out at state’s deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis of BJP and state’s food, civil supplies and consumer protection minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who is a veteran OBC leader.
“They both are casteist people,” he said, adding that if the Marathas do not get the reservation as described, he would make the government surrender.
Asked about his comments, Fadnavis said: “You are asking the wrong person.”
Last year, the government, in a massive exercise, went through Kunbi-Maratha and Maratha-Kunbi records and as per Jarange-Patil’s claims 57 lakh records have been found. Kunbis form a sub-caste of the Maratha and covered under OBCs - and thus the certificates would enable them to get reservation in jobs and education.
In February 2024, 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’s demand is to declare the Marathas as Kunbis and grant separate quotas from the OBCs, plus the formal notification of the ‘sage-soyare’, a Marathi term for ‘relatives from the family tree', which widened the scope of the quota.
Soon after his latest agitation, Jarange-Patil asked the government to issue a GR and declare that
Kunbis and Marathas are the same - simplifying the issue. Besides, he also demanded that cases against the agitators must be withdrawn as assured by the government.
In a post on X, Jarange-Patil said: "This is the last agitation...this is the last chance for the government."