The ongoing Maratha agitation demanding reservations for community members in education and jobs inched closer to Maharashtra’s corridors of power on Sunday, as thousands of people took out a massive “silent” morcha from Teen Haath Naka to district collector’s office in Mumbai’s satellite city of Thane.
A day after the Maratha community members took out a similar “silent” morcha in western Maharashtra, the main roads of Thane turned into a sea of humanity as the agitators — comprising mostly young boys and girls carrying saffron flags and placards — walked along the designated five-kilometer route of morcha in a most disciplined manner.
Thane was the 25th district where “silent morchas” have been organised so far by Marathas across the State. The Maratha activists organised at Chiplun where the people from different parts of Ratnagiri district in coastal Konkan region.
A delegation of the “Maratha Kranti Silent Morcha” met the district collector Mahendra Kalyankar and submitted a memorandum, demanding among other things demanding reservations in education and jobs for Maratha community members, scrapping of the “misused SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, initiation of stern action against the culprits behind the gang-rape and murder of a 14-year-old Maratha girl at Ahmednagar district in July this year.
While more than three lakh people had turned for the rally, official sources pegged the number of agitators preset at a conservative two lakh people.
The Maratha community members from places like Kalyan, Dombivli Nalla Sopara, and some parts of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, while thousands of people from places like Dapoli, Ratnagiri, Rajapur and Chiplun had turned out for a similar rally organised at Chiplun in Ratnagiri district.
Not wanting to take chances, the police had made elaborate security arrangement along the morcha route. Between 11 am when the morcha started and 4 pm when it culminated, The police had also diverted the traffic from the main roads of Thane. The police had also advised ordinary citizens not to stir out of their homes, unless they had some important work on hand.
The Central Railway operated 40 additional locals to ferry people to the morcha, while it cancelled the mega block it had planned for the day on the harbor to facilitate the agitators to reach Thane.
So well planned was the morcha that the organisers had made elaborate arrangements medical kits and water bottles, for those participating in the morcha. The organisers had made preparations for the morcha for the past two months.
The organisers had put up banners, posters and big hoardings all over Thane city. The slogan read thus, Ek Maratha, lakh Maratha (one Maratha, a lakh Marathas”
Prominent among the politicians who participated in the morcha were guardian Minister Eknath Shinde, MPs Srikant Shinde, and Rajan Vichare, all of the Shiv Sena, Congress city president Manoj Shinde, MlA Jitendra Awhad, MlC Rai Phatak and Niranjan Davkhare of the NCP. However, conspicuous by their absence at the morcha were the local BJP leaders.
After submitting a memorandum to the Thane district collector, the youngsters leading the morcha addressed a rally at Thane’s central maidan grounds.
Meanwhile, informed sources said that Marathas would take out a massive morcha in Mumbai some time next after the Diwali festival.