Marathas celebrate as Fadnavis govt accepts demands of Jarange Patil

Maratha protesters at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan began celebrating after a delegation of Maharashtra cabinet ministers, led by Water Resources Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, who heads the cabinet’s sub-committee on Maratha quota, met fasting Maratha quota protest leader Manoj Jarange-Patil on Tuesday and assured him that a Government Resolution (GR) will be issued, granting Kunbi OBC status to Marathas of the Marathwada region.

Jarange-Patil withdrew his agitation on its fifth day after he received a draft of an official Government Resolution (GR) on the implementation of the Hyderabad Gazette, granting Kunbi OBC status to Marathas of the Marathwada region, which was given to him by the delegation of ministers at Azad Maidan on Tuesday evening.

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The delegation of ministers assured Jarange-Patil at Azad Maidan that a Government Resolution (GR) will be issued to implement the Hyderabad Gazette recommendation to give Kunbi OBC status to Marathas of the Marathwada region in an hour’s time. Jarange-Patil accepted the assurance and said that as soon as the GR is issued, he would leave Mumbai along with his supporters.

The Fadnavis government has accepted six out of eight demands made by Jarange-Patil. “The scholars have looked at the draft. We have accepted the draft. Now the government should issue the Government Resolution (GR). If any fraud is found in the GR, then not a single minister will be allowed to roam around in Maharashtra,” Jarange-Patil told his supporters.

Earlier, the Bombay High Court accepted a request made by senior advocate Satish Maneshinde and other lawyers on behalf of Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil and his supporters for some time to engage in dialogue with the state cabinet committee on the Maratha quota. The court also adjourned the hearing on a plea challenging the permission granted for protests at the designated site at Azad Maidan in South Mumbai to Wednesday (September 3) at 1 pm.

The Bombay High Court also allowed Jarange-Patil to stay at the Azad Maidan protest venue till Wednesday morning.

The Maharashtra government stated that it has agreed to withdraw cases against protesters even as the police came in huge numbers on Tuesday and cleared out protesters near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) railway station and the roads near the Bombay High Court building.

Addressing his supporters after he accepted the assurance of the delegation of ministers, Jarange-Patil said, “Our demands were already presented to the government in written form. The first issue was the immediate implementation of the Hyderabad Gazette, which we had demanded. The government has now made a decision on this. Minister Vikhe Patil has assured that the government will issue a Government Resolution (GR) on it. The cabinet sub-committee has decided to approve the proposed demand for the implementation of the Hyderabad Gazette. According to this government decision, an action plan is proposed under which individuals from the Maratha community in the village will be issued Kunbi caste certificates after verification, if their relatives, clan members, or people from the same village have already been issued such certificates”.

Incidentally, the Hyderabad Gazette was issued by the pre-Independence Hyderabad Nizam-era government in 1918, granting Kunbi other backward caste (OBC) status to Marathas of the Marathwada region, which used to be part of the erstwhile Hyderabad State ruled by Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan until 1948. This document is still considered valid and is accepted as a reference in many ongoing legal cases. The Hyderabad Gazette has noted that the Maratha community has historically been socially and educationally backward.

The Maharashtra government has assured Jarange-Patil that the Hyderabad Gazette will be implemented through a Government Resolution (GR), while implementing the recommendations of the other three gazettes, issued by Satara, Bombay, and Aundh, granting Kunbi OBC status to Marathas, will take at least a month’s time.

However, Maharashtra Food & Civil Supplies Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who is a senior OBC leader, warned that lakhs of OBC community members will stage protests if the reservation quota meant for OBCs is diluted by the Maharashtra government in any way. Bhujbal said Marathas should not be accommodated in the quota meant for OBCs, adding that only 17 per cent reservation is available for 374 communities in the state of Maharashtra.