Their coming together held significance as Bhujbal has been upset with his party chief Ajit Pawar for not including him in the state cabinet. (File)
After Manoj Jarange-Patil on Sunday threatened to bring down the BJP-led Mahayuti Government in Maharashtra, OBC leader Chhagan Bhujbal challenged the Maratha quota activist to field candidates in the upcoming Assembly elections to prove his mettle.
While addressing a rally in Pune in the evening Jarange-Patil said, “The Mahayuti Government has one last chance of giving reservation to the Maratha community through the OBC category. If Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnanis fail to ensure that, then they should remember their government will fall”.
“They have only one option…to shoot me down. But till I am there, I will not sit quietly…I will ensure that Marathas get reservation,” he said.
Story continues below this ad
The quota activist said those who harassed the Maratha community will be defeated in the Maharashtra Assembly election. “Marathas are being harassed everywhere. They are neither getting jobs nor education. Maratha officers are not getting promotions. During the Lok Sabha elections, we demonstrated our strength… Those who are against me are being made MLCs through the back door,” he said without mentioning BJP’s Pankaja Munde who was elected as an MLC last month.
Jarange-Patil also attacked BJP leaders Fadnavis, Girish Mahajan, Narayan Rane, Pankaja Munde, and Prasad Lad. He accused Fadnavis and Bhujbal of laying a trap for him. “They are taking support of other leaders like Pravin Darekar and Prasad Lad… They want to incite violence. Fadnavis is trying to defame me, and through Bhujbal he is trying to conspire against me,” he said.
Without naming Rane, the activist said, “The Maratha community made him a big leader. The same person is now speaking against the Maratha community. I want to warn this leader that he should not listen to Fadnavis and target the Maratha community. Otherwise, the Maratha community will give him a befitting reply”.
Jarange-Patil said a decision regarding fielding candidates in the Maharashtra Assembly elections will be taken at the end of this month. “The decision will be taken at Antarwali Saraati in Jalna district on August 29,” he said.
Story continues below this ad
On the other hand, Bhujbal challenged Jarange-Patil to field his candidates in the Maharashtra Assembly elections. “Jarange-Patil is threatening to field candidates in all the 288 seats during the Assembly elections. I challenge him to field 88 candidates and get at least 8 of them elected,” Bhujbal said while speaking at an OBC rally in Sangli on Sunday.
Bhujbal said not all Marathas are against him. “Some are neutral while some side with us. But those who oppose OBCs will be given a befitting reply,” he said.
“If the Maratha community wants reservation, they should take it legally. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given 10 per cent increased reservation…The reservation issue in North India has been resolved but in Maharashtra, Jarange-Patil is refusing to stop. The Mahayuti Government has made it clear that it will not be possible to give reservations to Marathas through the OBC category…The Government should give separate reservations but we will not accept if it is given through the OBC category,” said Bhujbal.
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
3 min read
