OBC vs. Maratha face-off: Marathwada simmers as Laxman Hake and Jarange-Patil cross swords

Caste tensions escalate in Maharashtra's Marathwada region as OBC and Maratha activists clash over reservation issues.

Maharashtra’s Marathwada region seethed with caste tensions yet again on June 21 as other backward class (OBC) activist Laxman Hake, on an indefinite hunger strike, traded bitter barbs with Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil over the Maratha reservation and OBC counter-protest issue even as Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis and CM Eknath Shinde’s Mahayuti government strove to defuse tensions between the two castes.

While Mr. Fadnavis said the government did not want “a Marathas versus OBC face-off” and wanted to preclude caste tensions, Mr. Hake refused to call off his fast which entered its ninth day in Jalna’s Wadigodri village today, reiterating that the State government give a written assurance that it would not accommodate Maratha community interests at the cost of harming OBC reservation.

The OBC community was restive in several villages in Beed, Nanded, and Jalna districts, staging roadblocks and burning tyres at a number of points while expressing their support for Mr. Hake’s fast.

Mr. Hake’s ongoing protest is in direct response to Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil’s insistence on the Marathas getting reservations via inclusion under the OBC Kunbi category.

In a litany of allegations against the government, Mr. Hake alleged that OBC certificates being issued to Maratha community members whose family records proved them to have been Kunbis were “bogus”.

He demanded a White Paper on the issue and the scrapping of 54 lakh such certificates issued to the Maratha community while urging the State government to come clear on its proposed implementation of the draft notification pertaining to blood relatives (translated as ‘sage soyare’ in Marathi) of those Marathas for whom Kunbi OBC records had been found.

Throwing down the gauntlet to Mr. Jarange-Patil, Mr. Hake, whose agitation has been backed by prominent OBC politicos in the State cutting across party lines, said, “Jarange, you do not have the stature to argue with me on reservation. Someone needs to educate and teach him about policy. He knows nothing about the Mandal Commission.”