Shinde also said directives will be issued to give the Kunbi caste certificates to blood relatives of a person who already possesses similar documents.
The speculation about the likely cabinet reshuffle in Maharashtra strengthened on Saturday, with senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule stressing that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' discretion is supreme among allies.
Activist Manoj Jarange on Wednesday asked the Maharashtra government to make it clear whether it is ready to provide reservation to the entire Maratha community and why it needs more time in granting quota to it.
The Maratha quota matter snowballed into a major challenge for the state government after the police earlier this month baton-charged a violent mob at Antarwali Sarati when protesters allegedly refused to let authorities shift Jarange to hospital.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday said the all-party meeting held earlier in the day decided that reservation should be given to the Maratha community without tampering with the existing quotas of other communities in the state.
Maratha quota protester Manoj Jarange, who has been on a hunger strike in Maharashtra's Jalna district, said on Thursday that their agitation will continue till the state relaxes the condition of genealogy while giving Kunbi caste certificate to the community members from the Marathwada region.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday announced the withdrawal of police cases filed against pro-Maratha reservation protesters in Jalna district, the epicentre of the latest round of stir on the issue, and urged quota activist Manoj Jarange to end his indefinite fast.
The Maratha community is not backward and hence it does not require reservation in government jobs and education, a petitioner argued before the Bombay high court on Wednesday.
The Maharashtra cabinet on Wednesday decided that Kunbi caste certificates will be issued to those Marathas hailing from the Marathwada region who possess revenue or education documents from the Nizam era that recognise them as Kunbis, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said.
The monk claimed that since the closure of the feeding area, the pigeon population has drastically declined.
OBC activist Laxman Hake was allegedly manhandled and verbally abused by members of the Maratha community in Pune, and a video of the incident surfaced on social media, the police said on Tuesday.
'When the chief minister saw how Manoj Jarange Patil had successfully held the state government hostage to his whims, Eknath Shinde knew he had a very clear chance of enamouring himself to these Maratha agitators by accepting Patil's demands.'
Three Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have threatened to contest as Independents from Jalna in the upcoming Maharashtra assembly polls after the seat went to Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena as part of the Mahayuti's seat-sharing arrangement.
Fasting quota activist Manoj Jarange on Monday sought reservation for the Maratha community in entire Maharashtra and not in specific regions and warned the ongoing agitation will be ratcheted up if the demand was not fulfilled by the state government.
Bhujbal said he had an elaborate discussion with the CM on the prevailing political and social atmosphere in the state.
'Life in India is better only for those who have reservations.'
The disclosure by Chhagan Bhujbal that he resigned as a minister last November has put a focus on the Maratha quota tightrope the Eknath Shinde-led government is walking amid restlessness in OBCs, with Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray claiming Bhujbal and the Bharatiya Janata Party are hand in glove.
Hingoli MP Hemant Patil submitted his resignation to the Lok Sabha secretariat in New Delhi on Monday, while Nashik MP Hemant Godse sent his resignation letter to CM Shinde.
Dhananjay Deshmukh, brother of slain Beed sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh, climbed a village water tank on Monday and threatened to jump alleging that information about the investigation was not shared with the family. He demanded that the accused in the extortion case linked to sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh's murder be booked under murder charges. Family members of the slain sarpanch and Opposition leaders are demanding that state minister Dhananjay Munde's aide Walmik Karad, arrested in a related extortion case, be booked for murder. Santosh Deshmukh, the sarpanch of Massajog village, was abducted, tortured, and murdered on December 9. Preliminary investigation suggests that the sarpanch had tried to thwart an extortion bid on an energy firm operating a windmill project in the region. After climbing down the water tank, Dhananjay told reporters that he trusted Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' assurance on the probe. He further said his agitation was not a drama but a serious yearning for justice for his brother.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday underlined the necessity of any reservation standing legal scrutiny as he listed key measures undertaken by the state government for the Maratha community.
Thousands of people gathered in Maharashtra's Beed city on Saturday to protest against the brutal murder of Massajog sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh as even MLAs from ruling parties demanded the sacking of Nationalist Congress Party minister Dhananjay Munde.
'It is now the government's duty to find a way out of this impasse without hurting interests of any sections of Maharashtrian people.'
Jarange, aged around 40, has been holding the hunger protest in Jalna district's Antarwali Sarati village since August 29.
'Since September 1, a senior cabinet minister has been to-ing and fro-ing between Jalna and Mumbai by chartered flight every single day with messages from the two deputy chief ministers and the chief minister to get Manoj Jarange-Patil to back down from his agitation.'
Several legislators cutting across party lines in Maharashtra on Thursday staged an agitation outside the Mantralaya, the state secretariat in south Mumbai, in support of the demand for reservation to the Maratha community.
'Over the last 65 years the state has seen majority of Maratha chief ministers and cabinet ministers, even Union cabinet ministers.' 'The Marathas have always wielded disproportionately significant political, commercial and social influence in the state and yet they are asking for reservations today.'
Activists Laxman Hake and Navnath Waghmare, who have been sitting on a hunger strike at Wadigodri village in Jalna district since June 13, did not allow doctors to check their health or administer intravenous fluids.
A delegation of the Maharashtra government, comprising ministers, on Tuesday failed to convince Manoj Jarange, whose hunger strike for Maratha quota entered the 8th day, to withdraw his protest.
Owaisi said 324 farmers have died by suicide in "Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) division", but no one is talking about it.
The situation is currently under control, Beed Superintendent of Police Nandkumar Thakur told PTI.
Patil said Shinde during his Dussehra speech at Azad Maidan in Mumbai assured the community of reservation.
The BJP has again fielded Prataprao Patil Chikhalikar who humbled Ashok Chavan in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by over 40,000 votes.
Before going to the police, Karad posted a video on social media, announcing that he would surrender and claimed he was being linked to the murder case due to political vendetta.
The Maharashtra police has so far registered 141 cases in connection with the violence during the Maratha quota agitations and arrested 168 persons, state Director General of Police Rajnish Seth said on Wednesday.
As violence broke out, police baton-charged the protesters and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse them. Several persons, including 40 police personnel, were injured and more than 15 state transport buses were set ablaze. More than 360 persons were booked in connection with the violence, police said.
Bhujbal, who has strongly opposed the demand to include the Marathas in the other backward classes category for quota benefits, said a new social system is taking shape in Maharashtra which is different from the order envisaged by prominent social reformers.
He alleged that the MVA allies were refusing to consider the factor of Maratha activist Manoj Jarange.
The development comes in the wake of an indefinite hunger strike launched by activist Manoj Jarange in Jalna district on Wednesday to demand reservation for the Maratha community.
Dharashiv, earlier Osmanabad, is among the eight districts that comprise the state's Marathwada region, where activist Manoj Jarange has led an agitation demanding reservation for Marathas in education and government jobs.
Chavan said the Mahayuti and BJP's policy was Viksit Bharat and Viksit Maharashtra, as spelt out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
