Jarange suspends fasting indefinitely and gives the government a month to meet the people’s demands

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange on Thursday suspended his indefinite hunger strike over the reservation issue six days after the strike began and gave the Maharashtra government a month’s deadline to accept the community’s demands. He made the announcement after Maharashtra minister and Maratha quota sub-committee member Shambhuraj Desai and Shiv Sena MP Sandipan Bhumre met him at his native village Antarwali Sarati in Jalna district and discussed the issue.

Addressing the people at the protest site, Jarange said, “We are giving the government a month’s time to meet the demands of the Maratha community. But we will also continue with our preparations for the upcoming assembly elections. If the government does not offer us reservations, we will go and get them.”

“If the demands are not met within a month, neither the opposition nor the government members should come to us. We will defeat the candidates (in the state assembly elections) by announcing their names,” he said. Jarange, who started his fresh wave of protests on Saturday, is demanding implementation of the bill recognising the Kunbis as “sage soyare” (blood relatives) of the members of the Maratha community and is also demanding a law recognising the Kunbis as Marathas.

Kunbi, an agrarian group, falls under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category and Jarange is demanding that all Marathas be issued Kunbi certificates so that they get quota benefits. After his meeting with Jarange, Minister Desai said, “A meeting (on the issue) will be called tomorrow. Out of the last five months, two months have passed in which the code of conduct (for the Lok Sabha elections) has been followed. We will take a positive decision on the demands of the Maratha community in a month. If additional manpower is required to speed up the work, we will do so with the permission of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.”