Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) State president Chandrakant Patil on Sunday said the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government had stabbed the Maratha community in the back by failing to vigorously defend before the Supreme Court the issue of providing its members reservation in education and jobs.
“As a result, the court has now put a stay on the implementation of the Maratha quota law. Our [BJP] government had fought hard to first get the Bill passed in the Maharashtra legislature, and then make sure that the law endured in the Bombay High Court,” said Mr. Patil.
Rattled by the muk morchas (silent rallies) in the State in the latter half of 2016, the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government had finally managed to get the Maratha quota Bill passed in the Assembly in 2018 to pacify the restive community.
Mr. Patil also alleged that the Congress never took any interest in granting a quota to the community. “Right from the beginning, the Congress leadership had no interest in granting reservation for the Maratha community despite the fact that the proposal for a quota was first mooted during the 15-year rule [1999-2014] of the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party coalition in the State,” Mr. Patil said.
He also rebuked Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar for hinting at fresh transfers of IAS officers unless the grim COVID-19 situation in Pune was brought under control.
Mr. Patil said the Deputy Chief Minister himself ought to monitor the situation daily if he wanted results rather than hectoring or browbeating officials.
‘Indulging in idle politics’
Countering him, a Congress leader from Pune said Mr. Patil was merely indulging in “idle politics” and the fact that the then Congress-NCP government had proposed reservation for the Maratha and Muslim communities in the State, proved that it had always been serious about both communities getting their due rights.
Senior Congressman Mohan Joshi criticised the BJP State chief over the pandemic situation in Pune, remarking that despite several BJP leaders occupying positions of power in the Pune civic body and the city, not one had contributed anything significant to alleviate the health crisis.
‘Political stunts’
“The BJP has 100 corporators in the Pune civic body. The Mayor is from the BJP. Mr. Patil is an MLA from Pune’s Kothrud area. Union Prakash Javadekar, who is considered Prime Modi’s ‘right hand’, hails from the city. Yet, all these bigwigs have only indulged in political stunts instead of boosting the city’s medical infrastructure,” Mr. Joshi said.
