Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
Founder of Maratha Seva Sangh (MSS), Adv Purushottam Khedekar, said, “For the last 35 years we have been pursuing the demand of reservation to Maratha community from OBC quota in a constitutional manner. We could associate with Manoj Jarange-Patil to support this demand, but we do not consider him as our leader.”
Adv Khedekar is on the Jansamvad Yatra to Marathwada and Vidarbha regions from January 16 to 31. After touring Hingoli, Parbhani and Nanded, he reached the city and was addressing the media persons on Friday. He will be visiting other four districts of Marathwada and the whole Vidarbha region during the tour.
“ The conflict between Maratha and OBC should be avoided. Our role is that the fear in the minds of OBCs should be eradicated and both the OBC and Maratha should unite together,” he said.
In reply to a question, Adv Khedekar said,“ Sambhaji Brigade is our political party. We had an alliance with Shiv Sena (UBT) in August 2022. We will be contesting Lok Sabha polls and have demanded nomination from 4-5 seats. We are having strong claims on Hingoli and Buldhana constituencies.”
Referring to the free distribution of grains to 81 crore citizens, Adv Khedekar said that our demand is to utilise the compensation for some other work. We suspect there would be some politics behind this distribution task, he said.
“The underprivileged in OBC should also get reservation by revising the quota. They should get their share, but we should also not refrained from getting it,” said Khedekar in reply to a question.
He said, “The society that was living cordially today is feeling uneasy due to the creation of rift between them. The progressive and revolutionary movements coexisted in the past, but they are also feeling a gap between them. Government schemes seem to be fraudulent. There is no doctor, no medicine in government hospitals. Besides, it seems that no conscious efforts are being made intentionally to get a fair price for the farmer's goods. There is no stability in politics as well.”
Chandrashekar Shikhare, Shivanand Bhanuse, Wing Commander (Retd) T R Jadhav, Dhananjay Patil, Bhausaheb Shinde, Vaishali Kadu and others were present on the occasion.