The BJP-backed Eknath Shinde government’s move in Maharashtra to woo the politically dominant Marathas with 10 per cent reservation seems to have backfired, with angry Marathas describing the concession as a pre-election eyewash.

A large section of Marathas believe that the reservation — enacted in the Assembly in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls — will not stand in court and that the state government has known this all along.

Many of them say they may vote against the BJP-Shiv Sena government.

The Marathas wanted the government to include them in the wider OBC category, which enjoys a 19 per cent quota in the state, confident of bagging a substantial chunk of the pie in practice.
They believe that a separate quota — which signifies they are not deemed a backward group — will be struck down by the courts. A petition challenging the law has already been moved before Bombay High Court.

However, accepting the Maratha demand would have upset the OBCs, a key BJP support base in Maharashtra who consider the Marathas an educationally advantaged forward caste.

“The reservation given to us is just a pre-election lollipop. Most Marathas will vote against the Mahayuti (the NDA alliance in the state) candidates,” said Kavita Kadam, a housewife at Karad village in Satara district. “No reservation, no vote.”

The law was rushed through in February under pressure from an intense apolitical agitation led by quota activist Manoj Jarange Patil that drew huge support. It provides 10 per cent reservation to the Maratha community in state government jobs and in admission to state government-run educational institutions.

The quota lifts Maharashtra’s total reservation volume to 72 per cent.

Patil, the agitation leader, has rejected the law reiterating his demand that Marathas be recognised as a backward group and provided reservation within the existing 19 per cent OBC quota.
The OBCs are firmly against any encroachment on their share of reservations.

“Nearly 38 per cent of the people in Maharashtra are OBCs. They are getting just 19 per cent reservation. If the Marathas are included in the OBC list, the real OBCs will lose out,” said OBC lawyer Bhagwant Thakre in Yavatmal, part of the wider Vidarbha region that has a large population of backward castes like Kunbis, Telis and Malis.

Baban Taywade, president of the Rashtriya OBC Mahasangh, said the Marathas are not socially backward like the Kunbis or Telis.

“The Marathas are a socially forward caste. They do not qualify to be included among the OBCs. It would be an injustice to the OBCs if the Marathas are given reservation within the OBC pool,” Taywade said from Nagpur.

Large sections of Marathas believe the BJP deliberately blocked the community’s inclusion in the OBC category to avoid upsetting its vote bank of OBCs.

Chief minister Shinde is a Maratha and had tried his best to woo the agitating community, assuring it that the 10 per cent quota would stand in court.

“It is (BJP deputy chief minister) Devendra Fadnavis (a Brahmin) who runs the government and not chief minister Shinde. He was against giving us reservation,” claimed Sanjay Jadhav, a Maratha, at Atit village in Satara.

BJP leaders in Pune and Satara say that while the Marathas are in general livid over the 10 per cent quota, the community will not vote en bloc against the Mahayuti.

Priyanka Thorat, a Maratha villager in Satara, said the matter was not so simple.

“Manoj Jarange Patil (quota agitation leader) has indeed not favoured any party. He has told the Marathas to vote according to their choice,” Thorat said.

“But at the same time, he has said that people should keep in mind how the state government machinery had treated the protesters.”

Maharashtra’s existing 62 per cent quota volume includes 13 per cent for the Scheduled Castes, 7 per cent for the Scheduled Tribes, 19 per cent for the Other Backward Classes, 3 per cent for the Vimukta Jati, 2 per cent for some special backward classes, 8 per cent for various groups of nomadic tribes and 10 per cent for the economically weaker sections.

Yavatmal voted on April 26; Satara voted today