Maratha quota leader to launch 7-day peace & awareness campaign in Maha

Jalna (Maharashtra), July 6 (IANS) Shivba Sanghatana chief Manoj Jarange-Patil will embark on a 7-day campaign across Marathwada to drum up awareness on the pending issue of Maratha quotas and appeal for restraint by the community, from Saturday.

The awareness drive, planned in multiple phases, will start from Hingoli and end in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar on July 13, covering other districts like Beed, Nanded, Osmanabad, Latur, Jalna; he will address massive rallies over the next one week.

Briefly interacting with media persons, Jarange-Patil said in Jalna that the government will have to consider the Hyderabad gazette which mentions the ‘Maratha-Kunbis’ and ‘Kunbi-Marathas’ and also take suitable steps to implement the demand of ‘sage-soyare’ (bloodline).

The reference was to the upcoming four-day long visit of the Justice Sandeep Shinde Committee to Hyderabad from Monday, to verify and collect the details of the state gazette there pertaining to the Maratha-Kunbi and Kunbi-Maratha communities.

Leaving his village Antarwali-Sarati for Hingoli along with thousands of supporters this morning, Jarange-Patil will be welcomed at Balsond with a 30-foot mammoth garland of roses, lifted by a crane.

After offering respects before a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, he will start the peace-cum-awareness march around 11.30 a.m., wending through different areas before culminating at 3 p.m. with a public meeting.

To a query by the media on whether he would put up candidates for the October Assembly elections, Jarange-Patil said he would take a decision on the issue after July 13 when the ongoing peace-cum-awareness campaign will end.

Earlier, the Shivba Sanghatana leader had threatened that if the state government failed to accept all his demands, the Marathas would contest all the 288 seats in the Assembly polls and also specifically target to defeat the ruling MahaYuti candidates of Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party-Nationalist Congress Party.