This is an archive article published on December 18, 2023
‘Not even an hour extra after December 24’: Jarange calls meeting in Beed
Addressing a gathering of people who congregated in Jalna's Antarwali-Sarati on Sunday to decide the future course of the protest, Jarange-Patil said, “The government should pass a law on Maratha reservation by December 24. If not,...we will not give one extra hour and start our peaceful agitation.”
Manoj Jarange Patil demands that the govt pass a law on Maratha quota by Dec 24. (Express File Photo)
Maratha activist Manoj Jarange Patil on Sunday said the state government should pass a law granting reservation for Marathas by December 24 or the community would launch an agitation, the decision of which will be taken at a meeting in Beed on December 23.
Addressing a gathering of people who congregated in Jalna’s Antarwali-Sarati on Sunday to decide the future course of the protest, Jarange-Patil said, “The government should pass a law on Maratha reservation by December 24. If not,…we will not give one extra hour and start our peaceful agitation.”
“…I have consulted the community which has asked me to take a call (on the way forward) on December 23. The Chief Minister will also speak to me tomorrow (Monday)… We will wait and see what the government does…,” the activist said.
“Minister Uday Samant phoned me this morning and said CM Ekanth Shinde will announce the government stand on reservation in the State Legislature on Monday. Hence, we decided to hold a meeting in Beed on December 23 and decide the future course of the agitation,” he said.
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Jarange-Patil said minister Girish Mahajan met him on Saturday and urged him to extend the deadline. ”I told him there will be no further extension…This is the date which the government had given. The delegation, which met me when I was fasting, had promised that the government will provide quota by December 24,” he said.The activist reiterated his demand that the state government should provide reservation to all Marathas in the OBC category by giving them Kunbi certificates.
Besides the demand for reservation and passing of a law in the State Legislature, Jarange-Patil said the other demands of the community include those who have been proven guilty in Kopardi rape and murder case be hanged to death, 13,000 Marathas youths who qualified for government jobs be appointed and there should be no recruitment in government service till reservation is provided to Marathas.
Urging Marathas to gear up for holding a peaceful agitation, Jarange-Patil said, ”We should remain firmly united in our endeavour to get reservation…No one should take to violence. Our agitation should be peaceful. We will not withdraw our agitation till reservation is granted.”
Allaying the OBC community’s fear that the Maratha quota will impact their reservation, Jarange Patil said, “We are already in the OBC category. How can their quota get affected when we are already present in the OBC category?”
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He also demanded that the government immediately resume giving Kunbi certificates. “The process has been put on hold in some places. I urge the government to resume the process of issuing Kunbi certificates to those people, whose records have been found,” said the activist.
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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