Marathas pay in kind, back Muslims’ demand for quota

Thank Muslims for support to their ongoing morchas across the state.

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Muslim community members distributing water to the morcha participants in Pune on Sunday.

In what could perhaps lead to a new potent alliance in Maharashtra, Maratha community leaders on Wednesday made a strong pitch for reservations for Muslims in government jobs.

Praising the Muslim community for backing the Maratha Kranti Morcha and extending help to silent marches, Maratha community leaders said Muslims voluntarily joined their marches at different places. “They did not just join the marches, but also extended help like giving water and refreshments to the participants. And this happened across Maharashtra,” said Ajay Bhosale of the Sambhaji Brigade, which has been leading Maratha morchas from the front across the state.

Abid Shaikh, a businessman from Kondhwa, along with his friends provided 1.46 lakh mineral water bottles to the morchaites. “We are not attached with any political party. We felt the demand raised by the Maratha community were just and reasonable and it would be good gesture if we backed and helped them,” he said.

Bhosale said that like the Maratha community, Muslims too have a large section which is poor and struggling to get jobs and seats in educational institutes. “This is because they have no reservations. The government should provide reservations to the community after discussing with them. We will support the demand raised by the Muslim community,” he said.

The support extended by Muslims to the Maratha community and vice-versa assumes significance since the Dalit community has already extended similar support. “Which means, now the Marathas, Muslims and the Dalits are together and government cannot ignore their demands,” said a Maratha community leader.

Dalit leaders like Prakash Ambedkar and Ramdas Athawale had backed the silent Maratha morchas while denying any plans for counter-marches.

Welcoming the support from the Maratha community, MIM leader Imtiaz Jaleel said, “It is a good development. The Muslim community has supported the Marathas on their demand for reservations and also lent its cooperation to the morchaites,” he said.

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Jaleel said the Muslim community, taking a cue from massive Maratha morchas, was also planning similar morchas in Mumbai and other parts of the state. “We are contemplating such morchas in support of our demand for reservations. The morchas are happening, but the schedule is yet to be finalised,” he said.

Jaleel said that in 2014, the Bombay High Court had stayed the decision of the Congress-NCP government to provide reservations to the Marathas in government jobs and educational institutions.

The HC also stayed the decision to provide five per cent reservations to Muslims in government service, he said.

Jaleel said the erstwhile state government had told the court that its decision on reservations for Marathas and Muslims were based on the facts that the two communities were socially and educationally backward and also economically poor. “The government had cited reports of a committee headed by former chief minister Narayan Rane,” he said.

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The government said it had taken into consideration recommendations of Rajinder Sachar Committee and Mahmoodur Rahman Committee, both of which had recommended reservations for Muslims, while arriving at the decision to provide quotas for them.

Sena buys peace with Marathas with Saamana apology

Even as the cartoon controversy blew over with Saamana carrying an apology by its cartoonist on its front page on Wednesday, the Maratha community has decided to close the chapter. “Since the newspaper and its editor have expressed regret, the matter is over for us,” said Ajay Bhosale of the Sambhaji Brigade, which had claimed responsibility for the attack on Saamana offices.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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