‘Conveyed legal issues… found solution’: CM Fadnavis on Maratha quota as Jarange ends stir | Latest News India

After the Maratha quota agitation ended on Tuesday with the Maharashtra government accepting the key demand of including them in OBCs, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said misconceptions among other OBCs about this are “misplaced”.

“We conveyed the legal issues involved in activist Manoj Jarange-Patil’s demands to him… A solution was found in the interest of the Maratha community,” Fadnavis was quoted as saying by PTI.

Going by Jarange’s demand, the state government passed a resolution to classify all Marathas as Kunbis, their sub-caste that’s already listed among Other Backward Classes (OBC).

Only after that, did Jarange take a sip of juice from a minister and ended his fast at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan on its fifth day. His supporters have since started dispersing.

Fadnavis further said, “We will continue to work for all communities in Maharashtra, be it Marathas or (other) OBCs.”

The government has accepted the demand for implementation of the Hyderabad and Satara gazettes, a notification announcing that Marathas and Kunbis are the same, and implementation of the “Sage Soyare” (blood and marital relatives) notification issued last year, said Jarange-Patil, who has been demanding that all Marathas in Marathwada (central Maharashtra) should be treated as Kunbis as they were during the Nizam rule.

Jarange, 43, was in tears after breaking the fast as his supporters cheered loudly. He left Azad Maidan in an ambulance for medical check-up.

When three ministers led by Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil took the government resolution to Jarange, he initially demanded that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his two deputies — Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar — come to him to break his fast. “This would ensure there was no bitterness among Marathas,” he said. Vikhe-Patil told him all three are out of Mumbai and appealed to him to break his fast.

He then took juice from Vikhe-Patil.