The Maratha quota agitation has returned to haunt the Devendra Fadnavis government, with activist Manoj Jarange Patil launching an indefinite hunger strike in Mumbai ahead of this year’s local body polls in Maharashtra.
Patil’s hunger strike at Azad Maidan entered the third day on Sunday, the government failing to persuade him to withdraw the protest.
The activist, who has spearheaded multiple agitations since 2023, wants 10 per cent reservation for the Maratha community under the Other Backward Classes category, a demand politically near-impossible for the state government to meet.
A 12-member cabinet sub-committee formed by the Fadnavis government held talks with Patil on Saturday. Patil demanded an immediate government resolution to declare the Marathas of Marathwada as Kunbis, an OBC community, and start distributing caste certificates.
The quota protesters have been blocking traffic at several places in Mumbai in the middle of the Ganesh festival.
Providing OBC reservation to the landed Marathas can invite a huge backlash from the backward castes, the BJP’s main vote bank in Maharashtra.
Patil’s agitation had rocked the state ahead of the last general election and is believed to have been instrumental in the electoral reverses suffered by the BJP-led NDA in the state. The NDA won just 17 of Maharashtra’s 48 Lok Sabha seats.
However, following multiple shifts of stance by Patil, the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance roared back to power in the Assembly polls held four months later.
Patil had first urged Marathas to defeat the ruling alliance. He then changed his stand and said his umbrella organisation would field candidates independently of the two sides, the Mahayuti and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi.
Close to the polls, Patil backtracked again and said Marathas were free to vote for whoever they wanted.
Patil’s latest agitation appears aimed at regaining his dented credibility, and seems deliberately timed ahead of the local body polls.
The previous Mahayuti government, headed by the Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde, had granted a 10 per cent quota to Marathas under a separate category. Patil rejected it arguing the courts would strike it down (because it would cause the overall quota volume to exceed the ceiling of 50 per cent). He continued to press for a sub-quota within the wider OBC reservation.
Fadnavis has urged Marathas to withdraw their protest, referring to the previous Mahayuti government’s 10 per cent quota, which has been challenged in Mumbai High Court.
“The reservation has not been stayed by the court. Granting reservation to Marathas under the OBC category would pit communities against each other,” he said recently.
The Opposition has backed Patil’s current protest, with Maratha veteran Sharad Pawar urging the Narendra Modi government to come up with a constitutional amendment allowing overall quota volumes to exceed 50 per cent.
