After more than five lakh Marathas virtually laid siege to south Mumbai for nearly six hours to press for reservations and other demands, a compelled BJP-led alliance Government on Wednesday came out with a package for Marathas, including concessions in education like the one given to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and announced its readiness to accord reservations to the community in education and Government jobs — a demand they have been making since 2016.
Monitored by more than 7,000 traffic police personnel, several drones and scores of CCTV cameras en route, members of the dominant Maratha community owing allegiance to the Maratha Kranti Morcha (MKM) from various parts of Maharashtra took out 58th mammoth “mook morcha” (silent march) from Jija Matha Udyan at Byculla to Azad Maidan in south Mumbai.
The MKM was formed when members of Maratha community had come together and floated the outfit after a 15-year-old girl from their community was gangraped and murdered allegedly by three Dalit men in Ahmednagar district of western Maharashtra July 13, 2016 .
Wearing T-shirts, sporting saffron turbans and caps carrying a message “Ek Maratha, lak Maratha” and waving saffron flags carrying the image of Chhatrpati Shivaji, Marathas of all age groups — who had descended on the city from places like Konkan, north-Maharashtra, western Maharashtra and Marathwada Thane, Nashik, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Aurangabad, Solapur and Kolhapur — began their morcha around 11 am.
The Maratha protesters presented an unprecedented sight as they milled the entire stretch of 2.4 km JJ Bridge as they marched towards the historic Azad Maidan which turned into a sea of saffron brigade that had occupied every inch of the vast ground. Crowds had spilled over to the historic Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST).
Being an out and out non political morcha, the protesters tore the posters put up by various political organisations along the morcha route. Also, they had some tough questions for Congress MlA Nitish Rane, who had climbed the stage of the Maratha protests function.
Though police had made elaborate arrangements to regulate the traffic in the island city and the Maratha protesters conducted themselves in a by-far disciplined manner, there were major traffic disruptions in south Mumbai where the actual event took place, and neighbouring south-central and north-central Mumbai, where the people were inconvenienced by the cascading effect of the strike.
A couple of hours after the morcha culminated at Azad Maidan, a MKM delegation comprising majorly of girls representing the outfit met Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at the Vidhan Bhavan where the Monsoon Session of the State legislature is underway and discussed their demands with him.
The CM informed the delegation that the Bombay High Court had referred the Maratjha reservations issue to the Maharashtra State Commission for Backward Classes to ascertain if the Maratha community was socially and educationally backward. The State Government would submit to the Commission whatever inputs and it expected the commission to submit within a definite time-frame.
The other announcements that Fadnavis made were: The State Government would provide concessions to Maratha students along the lines of OBCs, introduce scholarships for Maratha students in 605 educational courses, extend all such student scholarships given to OBCs to Marathas, reduce the mark percentage criteria from 60 per to 50 per cent to Maratha students seeking scholarships and provide fee concessions to 10 lakh Maratha students.
Apart from extending scholarships to Maratha students under Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj Scheme, the State Government would set aside Rs 5 crore for building hostels for Maratha students in all districts of the State, allocate Rs 200 crore to the Annasaheb Patil Arthik Vikas Mahamandal to take care of the financial needs of Marathas, provide skilled vocational training to 3 lakh children of Maratha farmers and distribute caste and sub-caste certificates to the members of 18 Maratha communities and sub-sects.
Earlier, with many of major roads in south Mumbai remaining closed for traffic, the authorities opened up several alternate routes to let the officer goers reach downtown south Mumbai, where most of the offices and business establishments exist. At least 500 schools remained closed.
Towards the evening the Central Railways operated several trains to clear the crowds of Marathas.
