In the wake of violence in Maharashtra's Jalna district over the Maratha quota demand, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday said his government was committed to providing reservation to this community in education and government jobs.
Talking to reporters after attending a state function in Buldhana district, around 450 km from here, he also said that there was no misunderstanding between him and two deputy chief ministers in the state and that all of them were working as a good team.
"My government is committed to giving reservation to the Maratha community in the state. We will not sit quietly until the community gets its due reservation," Shinde said.
"Till the Maratha community gets reservation, the government schemes that are already in place will continue, and deserving people from the Maratha community will benefit from it," he added.
Reservation in jobs and education provided by the state government to the Maratha community was quashed by the Supreme Court in May 2021, citing the 50 per cent ceiling on total reservations among other grounds.
An agitation seeking reservation for the Marathas turned violent at Antarwali Sarathi village in Jalna on Friday, leading to several people, including dozens of police personnel, getting injured. Police resorted to lathi-charge and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse a violent mob that allegedly refused to let authorities shift a man on a hunger strike as part of the quota stir to the hospital.
Police registered a case against more than 360 people in connection with the violence, officials said.
When asked why Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who along with eight other Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLAs joined his government two months ago, was not present at the event, CM Shinde said, "Ajit Pawar informed me that he is unwell. He is down with fever, while Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis is in Ladakh to attend a military event." There was no misunderstanding among all three of them, he asserted.
"All of us are together as a good team," Shinde said.
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