Chief Minister Eknath Shinde recently convened a meeting with OBC leaders at Sahyadri guesthouse, where OBC representatives made significant appeals regarding the ongoing Maratha OBC reservation issue. The leaders emphasised their objection to including Marathas in the Kunbi OBC reservation and urged the issuance of a circular to secure the interests of OBCs.
Former MLA Ashish Deshmukh expressed gratitude for Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s previous assurance in Nagpur that OBC reservations would remain safeguarded. He appreciated the government’s initiative to hold a meeting with OBC leaders. Deshmukh stressed that the demand put forth by Manoj Jarange Patil is not legally grounded and suggested that Patil should explore reservation options through the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) category. Deshmukh made it unequivocal that OBC reservations should not be shared with any other group. The resurgence of the reservation controversy, closely following the Lok Sabha elections, has compounded the challenges faced by the BJP in the state. This dispute originated on August 29 when Manoj Jarange Patil, a Maratha community leader from the Marathwada region, commenced an indefinite hunger strike to demand Kunbi certificates for all Marathas in Marathwada. On September 1, the situation escalated as the police resorted to a harsh lathi charge at Patil’s protest site, resulting in shocking videos that reverberated across the state.
Patil called off his indefinite hunger strike on September 14 after a personal intervention by CM Shinde, who had visited him in Jalna and persuaded him to do so. Patil commended Shinde’s decisive action and expressed the Maratha community’s hopeful expectations of a lasting quota. The CM assured the community that a decision on the quota issue would be made within 40 days.
