Jalna, Sep 13: Bowing before political compulsions, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar are likely to reach Jalna this evening and meet the Maratha leader Manoj Jarange-Patil, on his 16th day of hunger strike, here on Wednesday.
Shinde and Pawar shall be accompanied by some ministers and officials to call on Jarange-Patil at the Antaravali-Sarati village where his indefinite hunger strike is on.
Incidentally, both Shinde and Ajit Pawar are Marathas, while Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis is on a tour of Rajasthan and will not be present at the venue today.
After the dignitaries call on him, Jarange-Patil is expected to call off his hunger strike, started from Aug 29 in support of the reservations for the Maratha community in education and jobs.
The decision of Shinde comes against the backdrop of his off-the-cuff remark late on Monday night that has triggered a political row.
Ahead of his media briefing that night, Shinde was heard telling Fadnavis and Pawar that “we just have to speak and go” – but it was caught on the cameras and microphones that were live at that time, and later the trio were seen laughing.
The Opposition Congress Chief Spokesperson Atul Londhe plus leaders of Nationalist Congress Party (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT) have slammed the CM’s remarks terming them as “a casual and insensitive approach” to the issue of the Marathas.
On Tuesday, Jarange-Patil had demanded that he would break his fast only in the presence of the CM, the two Deputy CMs, the entire state cabinet and the royal descendants, Chhatrapati Udayanraje Bhosale and Chhatrapati Sambhajiraje Bhosale, and others.
However, he also made it clear that the agitation would continue at the same venue and he vowed not to enter his house or meet his children till the Marathas quotas were granted by the government.
Jarange-Patil has also warned that if the state government failed to implement the Maratha quotas within a month, then on Oct. 12, he would organise a mammoth rally of Marathas, and also launch a relay-hunger strike and other forms of peaceful agitation for the cause.
