Amid tension in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray on Monday said that he will soon be taking a final call and reveal his party’s stand on Maratha reservation after the special session of the state legislature.
Quotas for Marathas has been a contentious issue as the community is a politically influential community that constitutes around 30% of the state’s population.
Shiv Sena supremo has called for a meeting with all the Ministers and legislators of his party to discuss various issues, Maratha Agitation stir being the main agenda. As per sources, Uddhav Thackeray had to take a serious note of the statewide agitation as his party’s 25 legislators in the lower house and 5 in Upper House belong to the Maratha community.
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While addressing the press conference, he said,”We demand that the legislature should take the decision and should not wait for any report from the National Commission for Backward class. I don’t want to wait for the commission report. All the parties and the legislature should come together and take the decision”.
‘I don’t want Maharashtra to burn’
“I don’t want Maharashtra to burn. Our main focus is that all the Marathas should get proper food and education. I don’t want to talk about anybody. I don’t want to create a difference between anyone”, he said.
“I appeal to the Maratha community to not indulge in violence anytime now. They should try to understand that Shiv Sena is with them”.
“Our team will meet the CM and submit the same what I said now”, he added.
Read: Why the Marathas are demanding reservation?
Earlier, the Maratha outfit Maratha Kranti Morcha called for a bandh after a man demanding reservation for the community committed suicide.
Previous Maharashtra government (Congress and NCP) appointed a committee to look into the issue and the demands of Maratha. The committee submitted its report in February 2014 which said that the community is backward (educationally, socially, economically). The committee then recommended extending reservation to the Marathas, but without touching the existing reservation. The then state government approved it, however, the decision was stayed by the Bombay High Court in November of the same year as the proposal was taking the extent of reservation much beyond the 50% mark.