Even as pro-Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange Patil refused to budge from his indefinite hunger strike, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday made it clear the State government would not take a hasty decision on the issue of Maratha reservation.
While Mr. Patil, whose indefinite hunger strike entered its fourteenth day, continued to insist that the government must issue Other Backward Castes certificates for all Marathas so that the community could avail benefits presently enjoyed by the OBCs community.
Mr. Shinde held an all-party meeting late evening in Mumbai to break the impasse under the shadow of intensifying tensions between the Maratha and OBC communities across Maharashtra.
“The State government wants to give the Maratha community a reservation that will be foolproof and one which will pass legal muster. We will not take any decision in haste. The decision cannot reduce the benefits under reservation of other classes. The State does not want to deceive any community,” Mr. Shinde said, adding that the priority would be to get quotas for the Maratha community in education and jobs.
He said the government needed to establish that the Maratha community was socially and educationally backward and also assure other communities that their quotas would remain unaffected.
Underscoring that the demand for a Maratha quota was a social issue and not a political one, Mr. Shinde appealed to all Opposition parties ahead of the meeting to avoid politicising the issue.
Besides ruling government leaders, representatives of the opposition MVA coalition – the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), the Indian National Congress and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party faction – attended the meeting.
Assuring that the government would not take any decision that may trigger a showdown between the State’s two most populous communities – the Marathas and the OBCs, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said the aim of the all-party meeting was to create “a broad consensus over the Maratha quota issue.”
Meanwhile, in Jalna’s Antarwali Sarati village, Mr. Patil cranked the pressure on both ruling and Opposition parties, compelling them to make their stand clear on the issue of Maratha reservation.
He said the Maratha community had waited for more than 70 years for justice and it had no patience to wait any longer.
“All of Maharashtra is watching as to which of these parties will support the Maratha community. We gave every one of them our support for all these years, now let us see which of these parties supports our demands,” Mr. Patil said.
The activist, who has stopped the intake of IV fluids and even gave up drinking water since Sunday evening, has declined to let doctors do a medical check-up on him, said local district officials.
While dismissing the need of being administered saline, he said what was needed at the moment was a “saline of Maratha reservation” to be administered to him.
“Why are the politicos speaking about possible tensions between OBCs and Marathas? We have never said do injustice towards other communities. But the Marathas must get reservation. We will now see which of these parties give us justice. They have been quick to give justice to other communities all these years,” Mr. Patil said.
