Reservation for the Maratha community would not reduce the current quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), stated Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday, news agency PTI reported. Fadnavis met with protesters from the OBC community in Samvidhan Square and assured them. He stated that the administration will not allow the OBC quota to be further split or lowered under any circumstances. Speaking at the gathering, Fadnavis stated: "The main demand of the Maratha community is about the 12-13 percent reservation given to them when I was chief minister. They want that reservation back."
According to him, the present administration, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, has begun work on a review petition to be submitted in the Supreme Court (which had set aside the quota awarded to the Maratha group in government employment and educational institutions in 2021).
Fadnavis emphasised that the administration is working to restore the reservation for the Maratha group, which is separate from the OBC quota.
"A situation where one community is pitted against another community is not good for the social fabric of the state," he was quoted by PTI in its report.
He further stated that the state administration will not allow such a fight to occur.
While the topic of Maratha reservation gained the stage earlier this month with the hunger strike of Maratha activist Manoj Jarange, OBC organisations protested against the prospective inclusion of the Maratha community in the OBC category in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nagpur, and Chandrapur.
Speaking with media earlier in the day, Fadnavis said the state government "has taken a clear stand about not touching, reducing or sharing the OBC quota." "Hence, we request the OBC community to withdraw their agitation," he said.
He personally demanded that the agitators at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, where he had attended a special cabinet meeting earlier in the day, halt their hunger strike, saying, "I believe that those (protesters) will end their hunger strike." Following Jarange's hunger strike, the government said last week that it will issue 'Kunbi' caste certificates to Marathas whose forefathers were named as Kunbi in Nizam-era papers. It will allow Marathas from the state's Marathwada area to qualify from quota advantages because Kunbis are classified as OBC.
However, it spurred the Rashtriya OBC Mahasangh to protest.
Meanwhile, Fadnavis refuted suggestions that all government employment will be made contractual as rumours. According to him, just a portion of the openings would be filled on a contractual basis.
The state government will soon replace 150,000 empty positions, which will be "the largest in the history of government recruitment," according to the deputy chief minister.