Vikhe Patil meets Jarange-Patil to iron out quota differences

In the backdrop of the disgruntlement of the Maratha community and the potential fallout in the ensuing assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party sent senior party leader and revenue minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil to pacify Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil

MUMBAI: In the backdrop of the disgruntlement of the Maratha community and the potential fallout in the ensuing assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party sent senior party leader and revenue minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil to pacify Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil, who has started interacting with ticket aspirants of the front that he heads.

Vikhe Patil meets Jarange-Patil to iron out quota differences

Vikhe-Patil met the quota activist at the latter’s Antarwali Sarati office for more than an hour at midnight on Wednesday. He reportedly tried to persuade him not to up his ante against the BJP and also apprised him about the steps taken by the party and its leader Devendra Fadnavis for Maratha quota. This was Vikhe-Patil’s second meeting with the Maratha leader in the past one week.

Jarange-Patil has, however, hit out at the BJP and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, saying that there was no point in holding talks when the leader (Fadnavis) was against the community. He said that the Maratha community will take a call to contest the polls or decide the fate of the candidates fielded by political parties. He said, “There is a tsunami of uproar among the Marathas for not getting the reservation. It will lead to the political encounter of BJP. The community has realised that deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is responsible for this loss of the poor Marathas.”

Jarange-Patil has also started interacting with aspirants who want to contest elections as candidates of the front he heads. As hundreds of such aspirants gathered at Antarwali on Thursday to meet him, Jarange-Patil said that he was not casteist and he was being approached by aspirants from all castes. He said the final call on whether to contest the election or not will be taken on October 20 after a marathon meeting of community members.

When asked about the latest move to woo Jarange-Patil, senor BJP leader and state minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said, “There should be dialogue in democracy and Vikhe Patil’s meeting with Jarange-Patil was an attempt to put up our stand before him. It was an attempt to apprise him as to what has BJP, its government, and Devendra Fadnavis has done for Marathas.”