CM ropes in all parties to untangle quota knot

The Maharashtra government has convened an all-party meeting on Saturday in a bid to untie the tangled knot of Maratha reservations which sparked a state-wide agitation, resulted in at least three deaths, and resignations by five legislators.

But even as Devendra Fadnavis is getting ready to iron out the nittygritties, it is claimed Vinod Tawde, State Minister and chairman of the all-party committee on Maratha reservation, is upset with the CM’s style of working.Fadnavis, it is understood, setting protocol aside, went to Tawde's residence for a meeting on Thursday night which continued for three hours after midnight.

Sources claimed that in recent days, Fadnavis has been giving more importance to Girish Mahajan, Minister for Water Resources, on the reservation issue. “Mahajan was sent to initiate a dialogue with the tribals who had staged a march from Nashik to Mumbai. Even when Maratha leaders warned the CM and asked him not to come to Pandharpur, it was Mahajan who tried to defuse the situation,” sources point out. Meanwhile, senior Maharashtra minister Chandrakant Patil has said, “Some big leaders were involved in a conspiracy to let loose snakes amid pilgrims at Pandharpur with the intent of causing a stampede.” That has further sharpened the fault lines in the government.

On Friday evening, Chandrakant Patil met retired Justice M. G. Gaikwad, the head of Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission, and had a detailed discussion on the way forward.

To ensure that the state government's proposal to give 16 percent reservations in government jobs and education sector pass the court test, the commission has been entrusted with the job of collecting data on

the socio-economic status of the Maratha community.

So far, the commission has received over 187,000 representations and the survey work is likely to be completed by August-end.

Meanwhile, Congress state President Ashok Chavan on Friday asked the Shiv Sena to withdraw support to the BJP government to build pressure on it for resolving the Maratha quota issue. "The previous Congress-NCP regime had given quotas to the Marathas and Muslim communities, but the BJP-Sena government could not protect it, and it took them 17 months merely to file one affidavit," Chavan said in a fresh salvo.

He also demanded that the state government withdraw all cases filed against Marathas in the recent agitation.