NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule on Monday accused the Maharashtra Government of ignoring Maratha quota leader Manoj Jarange, who has been on a hunger strike in Mumbai since August 29.
She criticised the authorities, stating, “The Government knew Jarange was coming to Mumbai and it should have taken steps to avoid the stand-off, but it failed to handle the agitation”. The Baramati MP reiterated her demand that the Government convene an all-party meeting over the reservation issue.
“A decision on the Maratha reservation should be taken in the cabinet and a resolution be passed in the State assembly. If any Constitutional amendment is needed (to remove the Supreme Court-mandated ceiling on quotas), it should be sent to the Centre,” she told reporters.
On a day Jarange stopped drinking water, Sule claimed no representative from the Government had met him since Sunday. On Saturday, a delegation led by retired High Court judge Sandeep Shinde met Jarange at Azad Maidan.
“It is my moral responsibility to listen to the woes of people and find a solution,” she said on Monday, a day after she was mobbed by Maratha protesters when she went to meet Jarange at the protest venue.
Sule also slammed the BJP for criticising her father and ex-Union minister Sharad Pawar amid the quota row. “On one hand, the people in the State Government ridicule NCP (SP), calling it a finished party, but when such a big agitation takes place, they blame Pawar saheb. They are in power with 250 MLAs and still, they criticise him,” she said.
Sule referred to the old speech of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis made in the assembly.
“The CM had explained how a reservation can be given. I request him and his two deputies to implement what he had said in the assembly in 2018,” she said.