This is an archive article published on October 27, 2023
PM deliberately skipped mention of Maratha stir: Jarange Patil
Even as the members of the Maratha community are turning back political leaders who are trying to enter villages, Manoj Jarange-Patil appealed to them to do so in a peaceful manner.
Jarange-Patil said it won't matter even if the Prime Minister does not mention the agitation for reservation.
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PM deliberately skipped mention of Maratha stir: Jarange Patil
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Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange Patil Friday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the state Thursday, deliberately skipped the mention of his fast-unto-death and the Chief Minister and deputy chief minister have a hatched a conspiracy against the Maratha community.
“Two days back, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis went to Delhi. I thought they must have told the Prime Minister about our agitation. But I suspect they must not have told him about it. If they had, then did the Prime Minister deliberately avoid making mention of the agitation? The people of Maharashtra are now interpreting that the Prime Minister does not need the poor,” Jarange Patil said while interacting with reporters in Antarwali Saraati village of Jalna where he has restarted his fast-unto-death demanding reservation for Maratha community.
On Thursday, the Prime Minister had visited Ahmednagar district and inaugurated a slew of development projects. He also addressed a farmers rally in Shirdi where he took a dig at NCP chief Sharad Pawar and spoke on a range of issues but avoided mentioning the Maratha reservation issue.
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“The state government had requested for 30 days time for giving reservation to the Maratha community. We gave them 40 days, yet, they failed to give us reservation. This means, now the government including the Chief Minister and deputy Chief Ministers do not want children of Maratha community to make it big in life…They have planned this conspiracy,” he said.
Jarange Patil said it won’t matter even if the Prime Minister did not say anything about the agitation for reservation. “The Maratha community was silent as it thought the Prime Minister will tackle the issue of reservation and the Chief Minister will persuade him to find a way out. Marathas did not have anything against the Prime Minister. If they had, they would not have allowed his copter to land in Shirdi…It would have been sent back,” he said.
Meanwhile, even as members of Maratha community are turning back political leaders who tried to enter villages, Jarange Patil appealed to them to do so in a peaceful manner. ”Turn away the political leaders from your villages in a peaceful manner. Let our agitation be peaceful. But my question is why are the political leaders trying to enter villages when the cannot provide us the reservation,” he said.
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