Jarange-Patil suspends fast, sets one-month deadline for Maratha quota demand

Pro-Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil on Thursday agreed to end his indefinite strike, six days after he started it, granting the Eknath Shinde-led government a one-month deadline to accept the community’s demands.

While ending his fast in Jalna’s Antarwali Sarati village, his native home, the activist maintained pressure on the ruling party leaders that despite giving a month’s deadline, they would go ahead with our preparations for the upcoming Assembly election.

On June 8, he started his fresh round of indefinite fast, demanding the implementation of a draft notification that recognises all blood relatives of Maratha community members as Kunbis, an agrarian group classified as an Other Backward Class (OBC) community, who are eligible for quota benefits. He also called for the framing of a law to identify Kunbis as Marathas, warning that he would field candidates for all 288 Assembly seats in the State election if his demands were not met.