Ahead of Maharashtra Assembly polls, Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange Patil to launch peace rally

Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange Patil prepares Maratha community for Assembly polls, hinting at independent candidacy.

Ahead of a peace rally across western Maharashtra from August 7, as an extension to its Marathwada tour, Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange Patil asked the Maratha community to be prepared for the upcoming Assembly polls on Tuesday.

Also read: Maratha reservation: Uddhav ready to back if PM Modi makes a decision

Mr. Jarange Patil revising his tone of pressuring the government with his protest, is now moving to a strategic stance. He has hinted at acquiring the power and availing the reservation. “The picture will be clear on August 29, whether to fight elections or not, but to be ready with papers, one candidate from each constituency will contest if the government do nothing about the reservation. We are gathering data from all 288 Assembly constituencies and will discuss the strategies after the tour. This time, it will be the wave of common man, will fight independently, do not require alliance,” he said.

Mr. Jarange Patil has already left for Solapur, from where he will start his rally. In the second phase of the tour, his caravan will visit seven districts of Western Maharashtra, covering Sangli, Kolhapur, Satara, Pune, Ahilyanagar, and Nashik from August 7 to August 13.

For a year now, Mr. Jarange Patil has been fighting for Maratha reservation, demanding to recognise Kunbis as ‘Sage Soyare’, and providing the option of choosing the reservation under any one of the categories- EWS (Economically weaker section), Socially and Educationally Backward Class (SEBC) classification, and Kunbi-Other Backward Class (OBC) reservation.

After, BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi(VBA) chief Prakash Ambedkar, NCP leader Chaggan Bhujbal, and Former minister and BJP MP Narayana Rane, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) Raj Thackeray opposed reservation and advocated for giving preference to locals of Maharashtra instead of an outsider. 

Meanwhile, many political parties are looking for an alliance with Manoj Jarange Patil. The prominent farmer leader and Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana Chief Raju Shetti working to unite all small parties for the third alliance, for he met him in Jalna.