Maratha protest takes a violent turn, houses of two MLAs torched

Violent protests erupted in Beed and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar districts of Maharashtra as Maratha community members set houses and offices of MLAs on fire.

The protest by the Maratha community for reservation took a violent turn on Monday after protesters set the houses and offices of MLAs across parties on fire in Beed and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar districts. The violence continued till late evening even after chief minister Eknath Shinde announced interim steps for reservation and appealed to the community not to resort to violence.

The bungalows of two sitting NCP MLAs, Prakash Solanke (Ajit Pawar faction) and Sandeep Kshirsagar (Sharad Pawar faction) were set on fire in Beed district. (PTI)

Maratha reservation activist Manoj Jarange-Patil, while refusing to talk to the government until there is a firm decision on blanket reservation to all Marathas, also warned the protestors that he would have to reconsider his agitation if the violence continued. “I will observe the situation and announce my decision by Tuesday evening,” he told them.

The bungalows of two sitting NCP MLAs, Prakash Solanke (Ajit Pawar faction) and Sandeep Kshirsagar (Sharad Pawar faction) were set on fire in Beed district. Reportedly, the mob went berserk after a remark by Solanke against Jarange-Patil. Former NCP MLA and minister Jaydutt Kshirsagar’s office was also torched while protestors pelted stones on BJP MLA Prashant Bamb’s office and a Shiv Sena office.

Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who was campaigning for BJP candidates in neighbouring Chhattisgarh, rushed to Mumbai and held a meeting of the state BJP’s core committee to discuss the situation. The union government has also sent an advisory to the state government on the deteriorating law-and-order situation. A senior bureaucrat, while refusing to give details, said that they were watching the situation. Meanwhile, the state police headquarters has asked police units in Beed and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar to handle the situation with a lot of care and sensitivity.

Even as the violence continued, politicians also threw in their lot with the Marathas. Hemant Patil and Hemat Godse, two MPs from Eknath Shinde’s party, announced their resignation while BJP MLA Laxman Pawar and Congress MLA Suresh Warpudkare offered to resign.

Jarange-Patil has been demanding that the government give Kunbi certificates to all Marathas without demanding any documents to verify this status. Kunbis are a Maratha sub-caste that falls under the Other Backward Classes category and gets reservation in education and government jobs on the strength of certificates from the pre-independence Nizam era where they were listed as Kunbis.

CM Shinde, who held a meeting of the cabinet sub-committee on reservation on Monday, appealed to Jarange-Patil and the protesters not to resort to violent means. He also announced several steps, including immediate distribution of Kunbi caste certificates to Marathas in Marathwada region, provided they had Nizam-era certificates.

“The protest has taken a violent turn, youths are dying by suicide and all this has brought a bad name to the community,” said Shinde. “The agitation has gone out of control, and it needs to be checked whether there is somebody behind it.” Interestingly Jarange-Patil alleged that people linked to the ruling alliance could be behind the violence to pressurise him to call off the agitation. He, however, refused to give in and warned the government of a third phase of protest.

Shinde’s efforts to pacify community

Shinde had earlier announced a few interim measures to pacify the Marathas when their agitation started getting violent. Addressing the media after the cabinet sub-committee meeting on Monday, he announced a three-fold plan to pacify the community.

The CM said that the Shinde committee’s preliminary report noted that 11,530 documents with Kunbi records had been found after scanning 17.2 million documents from the Nizam era. “On the basis of this, the revenue department will begin issuing Kunbi certificates to Marathas with valid documents from tomorrow,” he said. “The certificates, however, will be issued on the basis of Nizam-era records and will not disturb the existing reservation of OBCs.”

The committee, which has found records dating back to 1895, expects the documents to serve as a firm ground to issue certificates to at least ten generations. “We expect at least five lakh people to get Kunbi certificates,” said a revenue department official. “The committee will work for two more months and expects to get more documents from Telangana. The immediate implementation of the preliminary report is possible, as the state government has already issued GRs in 2004 and 2018 for such certificates.”

Cabinet sub-committee head and minister Chandrakant Patil said in the meeting that the government had issued four lakh Kunbi certificates in western Maharashtra in 2018, and a similar drive could be undertaken across the state now.

Shinde also declared that the government had decided to fight the legal battle in the Supreme Court with all its might. “We have moved the curative petition and will submit fresh empirical data to prove the backwardness of Marathas,” he said. “For this, we are taking the help of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics.” The government has also constituted an advisory board of retired judges.

Shinde also announced the resumption of dialogue with Jarange-Patil. “The cabinet sub-committee will begin the discussion,” he said. “The Maratha protest has gone out of control and has brought a bad name to the community, which has always believed in peaceful protest.”

MPs, MLAs resign in support

Hemant Patil and Hemant Godse, two MPs from the Shiv Sena led by chief minister Eknath Shinde sent their resignation to the Lok Sabha speaker while Congress MLA Suresh Warpudkar and BJP MLA Laxman Pawar too sent their resignations to the assembly speaker in support of the Maratha reservation protests. However, this does not mean that they immediately cease to be the members of the respective houses.

“First of all, the resignation should be in the proper format and through the official channel of communication,” said an official from the state legislature. “The speaker will in due course verify the resignation and may also summon the member in person for a hearing. The member has the option to withdraw the resignation till such time as it is not accepted by the speaker.”