Minister Chhagan Bhujbal writes to Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, seeks changes to Maratha quota rule

MUMBAI: Food and civil supplies minister and OBC leader Chhagan Bhujbal has written to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis demanding that the latest government resolution issued on Marathas applying for the Kunbi (OBC) certificate be changed or scrapped altogether.

The GR was issued on September 2, in order to get Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange to call off his 5-day hunger strike at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan.Bhujbal has written the letter in his capacity as president of the Akhil Bhartiya Mahatma Phule Samata Parishad. The GR allowed for the implementation of the Hyderabad gazette and simplified the procedure for Marathas with Kunbi antecedents applying for the OBC certificate. The letter points out that the GR has “changed the criteria for the issuance of the caste certificate to a particular community.” It alleges that the “GR was issued in haste, under the tremendous pressure of one powerful community and without it being put before the cabinet or calling for suggestions and objections.” It also said that the GR did not consider the protests of the OBCs in the state.

Quoting a newspaper article, the letter says that the Shinde committee set up by the state government had already found records of Marathas with Kunbi antecedents in Marathwada.

On the basis of this, 2.4 lakh Kunbi caste certificates had been issued to Marathas. “The purpose of issuing the GR, which is recognising the records of the Hyderabad gazetteer has not only been done earlier but in fact has been fully acted on by granting caste certificates to persons in respect to the records found by the Shinde committee.

”The letter also object to the admission of affidavits or relatives, villagers or clan members as documents for caste verification. “Affidavits to be used to decide or determine the caste of an individual is an unknown concept in India especially when it concerns the establishment of facts to secure the constitutional protection of reservation in education and employment,” it says.The letter asks for the withdrawal of the GR or the removal of ambiguities and vagueness in the GR in order to avoid a chaotic situation in Maharashtra.