Supporters of the Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil during a protest in Navi Mumbai.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Mumbai: Over the last two years, Manoj Jarange-Patil, who has emerged as the face of the Maratha reservation campaign, has kept escalating the demand and has put the government in a difficult position yet again.
In his forties, Jarange-Patil shot into limelight on 1 September 2023 during the sit-in at Antarwali Sarati village in Ambad tehsil of Jalna district when there was a clash between the protesters and the police, which had to resort to lathi-charge. While 50-plus protesters suffered injuries, 79 police personnel too sustained injuries.
The Maha Yuti government was in power then with Eknath Shinde as the Chief Minister and Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar as Deputy Chief Ministers.
The initial demand was for the issuance of Kunbi certificates for the Marathas in the Marathwada region. Kunbi, a predominantly agrarian community is a sub-caste of the Marathas, who get reservation under the other backward classes (OBC) category.
To find record entries of Maratha-Kunbi and Kunbi-Maratha and to formulate procedures to issue certificates, the Shinde-dispensation formed a committee headed by Justice Sandeep Shinde (retd).
Jarange-Patil gave the reference of the Bombay Gazette, Satara Sansthan Gazette and Hyderabad Gazette to support his demand.
According to Jarange-Patil’s claim, 58 lakh Kunbi-Maratha and Maratha-Kunbi records have been found during the scrutiny.
In January 2024, he forced the government to include blood relatives, and the Shinde-dispensation came out with a notification titled 'Maharashtra Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Denotified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), Nomadic Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Category (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate Act, 2000', defining “sage-soyare” (blood relations). According to the notification, the term includes relatives of the applicant’s father, grandfather, great grandfather and in earlier generations forming out of marriages within the same castes and will also include relations forming out of marriages within the same caste.
On its part, the Maha Yuti alliance had, before the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections, given a 10 per cent quota under the Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Act.
Besides, Marathas are eligible to seek reservation under the Economically Weaker Section (10 pre cent), the subcategory of people having an annual family income less than Rs 8 lakh and who do not belong to any category such as SC, ST and OBCs.
However, Jarange-Patil has demanded declaration of Marathas as Kunbis, a sub-caste covered under OBCs, which has a 27 per cent quota.
The OBC community, however, has made it clear that if their quota is touched or diluted, they would protest.