Sukanya Shantha 
Mumbai: Over the past year, as the demand for reservation by the Maratha community has intensified, anxiety among the Other Backward Class (OBC) community has also increased. Last week, two leaders from the OBC community – Laxman Hake and Navnath Waghmare – went on a hunger strike for eight consecutive days, agreeing to call off their protest only when they were assured by the Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti government that the existing reservation for the OBC community would not be disturbed even if the Maratha quota was implemented.
Hake, a former member of the Maharashtra State Backward Classes Commission, and Waghmare, the president of Samata Parishad’s Jalna unit, began their hunger strike on June 13. Since the protest started in Wadigodri village in Ambad tehsil of Jalna district, several opposition leaders, including Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar and Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi founder-President Prakash Ambedkar, visited them.
BJP leader Pankaja Munde was part of a delegation of OBC leaders that met with Shinde, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, and Ajit Pawar. Munde called for a “lasting solution” for both the OBC and Maratha communities, emphasising the need to end the tension between the two groups.
This is not the first time the OBC community has expressed concerns about including the Marathas – a numerically and politically dominant community – in the OBC list. In November last year, senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal led a protest against the state government’s decision to consider reservation for the Maratha community. Although Bhujbal joined the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, which is part of the ruling party in Maharashtra, he openly expressed his discontent with the government.
While the demand for Maratha status is longstanding, it intensified after Maratha activist Manoj Jarange-Patil increased his efforts against the government, seeking quotas in government jobs and education under the OBC category. Over the past year, Jarange-Patil has gone on hunger strike at least four times, each time being promised reservation in government jobs and education for the community in Maharashtra.
However, as the ruling ‘Mahayuti’ coalition – comprising the BJP, chief minister Eknath Shinde’s faction of the Shiv Sena, and the Nationalist Congress Party faction led by Ajit Pawar – continues to delay fulfilling these promises, Jarange-Patil has lost trust in the government. During the general elections, Jarange-Patil warned Fadnavis of dire consequences if the community’s demands were not met.
And consequences they faced. In the recently concluded general elections, it is believed that both the Maratha and OBC communities distanced themselves from the BJP and voted for the Mahavikas Aghadi alliance – comprising the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, Congress, and Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena. Of the 28 seats contested, the BJP managed to secure only nine seats, with its allies winning eight. In contrast, the Mahavikas Aghadi secured a total of 30 seats. The voting pattern can be seen clearly in both the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions where the BJP was almost decimated.
Last week, at the BJP’s review meeting, presided over by Union home minister Amit Shah and organised in Delhi, the party’s setbacks in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra were high on the agenda. With the assembly election scheduled for the end of the year, the party is trying hard to appease the community. Although Fadnavis has not been asked to step down, the responsibility for failing to retain the party’s vote share in the state has been placed on him. Soon after the election results, Fadnavis offered to resign from his position.
The upheaval among both the Maratha and OBC communities indicates that it won’t be easy for the ruling government in the state unless they find a solution to this political conundrum.