Maratha activist Manoj Jarange Patil on Monday hit back at Maharashtra Food and Civil Supplies Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, accusing him of trying to create enmity between Marathas and OBCs.“Bhujbal should speak with some sense. He is trying to create enmity between Marathas and OBCs but his plans would not be successful. Bhujbal is claiming that we wish to end the reservation for OBCs. But how will their reservation end? We are demanding the right of the Maratha community,” said Patil who was on hunger strike, demanding reservation for the community.Alleging that “some people indulged in violence”, Patil said, “They wanted to defame our protest by creating violence. These peaceful protesters shouldn’t be booked.”
Blaming the top leadership of his own government for taking the “anti-OBC decision”, the minister sarcastically asked how so many ancestral records had become available all of a sudden. “They are giving Marathas a backdoor entry to the OBC quota,” he alleged, asking OBCs to raise their voice against it. Bhujbal opposed most of the demands made by Maratha activist Manoj Jarange-Patil such as blanket reservation to all Marathas and withdrawal of police cases against violent protestors. He also expressed unhappiness about the government’s decision to send retired judges to Jalna to persuade him to call off his indefinite fast. “These judges are supposed to identify OBCs,” he said. “If they are made to stand before him (Jarange-Patil) with folded hands, how will they give justice to OBCs?”Bhujbal, who visited Beed on Monday and met the NCP leaders whose houses were targeted, insisted that the attacks on their properties were pre-planned and demanded not only a thorough investigation but also compensation for their losses. “There was a complete intelligence failure as far as the violence in Beed was concerned,” he said. “The police too did not do anything to stop the attackers who torched the properties.”The minister also demanded an investigation into the police lathi charge in Jalna on September 1, claiming that around 70 policemen, including female constables, were injured in stone-pelting by the Maratha community, after which the police took action.