The story so far: Since late August this year, 41-year-old Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil hailing from Maharashtra’s drought-prone Marathwada region, has brought the Eknath Shinde government to its knees by demanding a blanket reservation in education and government jobs for all Marathas in the State. Mr. Jarange-Patil withdrew his second hunger fast on November 2 after a government delegation convinced him to grant them more time (till January 2, 2024) to complete the process of granting reservation to the Marathas by giving them Other Backward Class (OBC) certificates and including them in the OBC Kunbi category.
How did it come about?
The immediate trigger for a renascent Maratha quota agitation was a violent fracas on September 1 between protesters and police in the Antarwali Sarati village in Jalna district (400 km from Mumbai), where Mr. Jarange-Patil, hitherto unknown, had been protesting since August 29. The police accused the protestors of starting the violence by pelting stones on security personnel while the agitators claimed that the police had carried out an unwarranted lathi-charge on them, causing grievous injuries.
