Maharashtra Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar) faction leader Chhagan Bhujbal on Wednesday dared Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil to challenge the Other Backward Class (OBC) reservation process as recommended by the Mandal Commission in the past, while alleging that lakhs of phoney affidavits were being made in order for the Marathas to get a quota under the OBC category via ‘back door’ methods.
Speaking to reporters, Mr. Bhujbal, a prominent OBC leader, censured the frenzied atmosphere of triumphalism that was prevailing among Maratha communities in villages while expressing concern over reports that OBC families were being harassed in the rural hinterland.
“The Marathas [in villages] keep shouting ‘we have won’. And how did they win? By taking OBC Kunbi certificates and entering the OBC category through the back-door. I have heard reports of late-night dancing by such mobs in front of OBC homes. I want to tell the police force that they ought to immediately put a stop to all this,” Mr. Bhujbal said.
“Clearly, our reservation is in danger because the entire Maratha community is being issued with phoney certificates under the Kunbi OBC category and trying to avail of reservation benefits through backdoor methods by encroaching on the rights of the OBCs and nomadic tribes,” he further alleged.
He attacked his own government – the Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti coalition – for surrendering to the ‘mobocracy’ by assenting to all of Mr. Jarange-Patil’s demands.
Last week, after CM Eknath Shinde met with the activist in Navi Mumbai and persuaded him to call off his protest by assenting to all his demands, the Maharashtra government issued a draft notification which stated that the blood relatives of a Maratha person, who had obtained records to prove that he belonged to the agrarian Kunbi community, would also be recognised as such. As per the activist’s demands, this would enable the relatives of that person to avail of reservation benefits currently enjoyed by the Kunbi OBCs.
Despite this, Mr. Jarange-Patil has warned he go on another indefinite hunger strike from February 10 if the State government did not implement his demands.
Mocking Mr. Jarange-Patil’s statement that he would challenge the very basis of OBC reservation and the Mandal Commission of the past, Mr. Bhujbal said, “Naturally, there is no one as learned as him [Mr. Jarange-Patil]. Small wonder he is talking of challenging the Mandal Commission. Let him do so if he really has the guts.”
