New Delhi: A day after Maratha activist Manoj Jarenge-Patil’s 40-day deadline to the Maharashtra government, the farmer activist resumed his indefinite hunger strike on Wednesday (October 25) and said it will continue until all Marathas are given reservations. 

Accusing the government of inaction, Patil rejected their plea to defer his protest any further after he called off the first phase of the protest on September 14, the Hindustan Times reported. Marathas from over 2,400 villages have joined the agitation, the report said.

Patil and his supporters have been demanding that all Marathas be given Kunbi caste certificates to get the benefits of reservation in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category. Kunbi, a sub-caste of Marathas, are classified as OBCs.

Rural development minister Girish Mahajan called Patil before he began his hunger strike at 11 am. “We want to give reservations that will stand up to legal scrutiny. The Justice Sandeep Shinde committee is working on the report. Chief minister Eknath Shinde has sworn on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in his Dussehra rally that he will give you reservation at any cost. He will personally speak to you,” Mahajan was heard telling Patil, who made the conversation public by turning on his phone speaker.

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“You asked for 30 days, we gave you 41, but nothing was done,” Patil told Mahajan. “There is no way we will call off the protest, as our youths are suffering. The government had promised that it would withdraw the cases against protesters after the September 1 lathi charge but nothing has been done. It looks like the government is playing tricks on us,” the activist said.

Patil added that 16 Marathas had died by suicide in the last few days but the government had done nothing to help their families. He also demanded that the farmers who suffered losses to their crops during the agitation be compensated by conducting a spot assessment.

The minister said that a legal process is required to withdraw police cases and that the concerned district collectors had been directed to help the families of those who died by suicide. 

The Maratha quota protests had begun on August 29 when Patil, a Maratha activist from Jalna, sat on an indefinite hunger strike, reviving a three-decade old demand for Maratha reservations. In some places, the agitation turned violent with the police resorting to lathi-charge on the protesters, further worsening the situation.

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The Maharashtra government apologised for the lathi-charge and later announced that Kunbi caste certificates will be issued to those who possess revenue or education documents from the Nizam era that recognise them as Kunbis.

OBC organisations, who are against the Marathas eating into their share of the quota, have said they will resume their agitation only if the government deviates from its written assurance that their quota will not be touched, the Hindustan Times reported.  “Unless the government swerves from its stand, we will not react,” said Babanrao Taywade, president, OBC Mahasangh.

Meanwhile, chief minister Shinde and deputy chief minster Devendra Fadnavis paid an unscheduled visit to Delhi on Wednesday and met Union home minister Amit Shah. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to speak about the issue during his Shirdi tour on Thursday,” an official from the chief minister's office told the paper.

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