Mumbai:
The Maharashtra government is in favour of the Maratha quota, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said today after an all-party meeting called by his government to discuss the fresh wave of statewide protests.
Marathas should observe restraint as the government needs time for legal modalities to implement the reservation, the Chief Minister said, urging pro-quota activist Manoj Jarange Patil to cooperate with his government.
Mr Patil, who has been on an indefinite hunger strike since October 25, told NDTV this morning that they are demanding inclusion under the Kunbi caste, and not any separate quota. Marathas belong to the Kunbi caste, which comes under Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, he asserted.
The Shinde government had formed a committee led by a retired judge to look into this. The committee has said in its report that after examining the documents of a lakh people, about 11,530 Marathas were found to have documents of being Kunbi.
