Maratha activist Manoj Jarange-Patil starts hunger strike in Jalna

Mumbai: Even before the ruling Mahayuti could come to terms with its poor showing in Marathwada in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha polls largely because of consolidated Maratha votes turning away from the ruling alliance, Maratha activist Manoj Jarange-Patil began a fresh round of indefinite strike in Antarwali Sarati village, Jalna, to push for the blanket reservation to Marathas from Saturday. The indefinite hunger strike took off even though police denied him permission to do so.

Jarange-Patil’s stand against the government, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), may pose a challenge for the ruling alliance in the assembly polls, slated to be held in October.

Jarange-Patil’s indefinite strike is to push the demand that Kunbi certificates be issued to Sage-Soyares (blood relatives) from the respective family trees. He been resolute in his demand that the certificates be given to relatives of those Marathas who possess documents tracing their Kunbi antecedents. This would help them get Kunbi certificates facilitating their inclusion in the OBC quota. The inclusion has been demanded on the basis of over 5.5 million documents with Kunbi records government authorities in the state found in a drive undertaken after Jarange-Patil’s protests last year.

On Saturday, the quota activist also announced that he will field candidates in all 288 assembly segments, from all backward communities including Dhangars, Lingayats, Muslims along with Marathas. “We have shown our strength in the Lok Sabha elections. It will be more impactful in assembly polls. Five to six backward classes will play a decisive role in state polls if we are not given the reservation. I would not personally contest, but will field candidates from the backward communities and defeat the candidates from ruling alliance by naming them openly,” he said.

He added that he had “not worked for or aligned with any party”. “Our demands are for the implementation of Sage-Soyare, withdrawal of criminal cases against activists who were in the dharna last year, and weeding out complicated terms and conditions in government gazettes that hold back funding to entrepreneurial Maratha youth,” he said.

Jarange-Patil also expressed unhappiness over being denied police permission to go ahead with the dharna on Saturday. “Cops cited a memorandum given by certain organisations to hold us back from the stir. We can also issue such memorandums citing the inconvenience caused to the people from (BJP’s) Maha Janadesh Yatra,” he added.

At the BJP MLAs’ meeting on Saturday, Fadnavis spoke about the impact of Maratha votes in the LS polls. He emphasised that the ruling alliance had failed to counter the narrative that the government was against Marathas. “We gave the reservation to Marathas twice, though the opposition parties who opposed it since 1980s benefited in the LS polls. We extended many facilities to the Maratha community despite which a false narrative was set against us. This narrative will not last long,” said Fadnavis.

The ruling alliance, which had bagged seven out of eight seats in Marathwada in 2019, the battleground of the Maratha reservation under Jarange-Patil since August last year, could win only one seat this time. BJP lost the prestigious Beed, Jalna and Nanded constituencies. After the poll results were declared, the ruling allies have admitted their flaw, and expressed the need for the immediate corrective steps.