Mumbai: With a vow to not leave Mumbai until the Maharashtra government gave into the demand for reservation for his community, Maratha quota agitation leader Manoj Jarange-Patil began his indefinite hunger strike at the Azad Maidan in south Mumbai on Friday, August 29. The 43-year-old activist, who has in the past sat on numerous hunger strikes with the same demand, said this was his final call and even if he “dies” or is “shot dead”, he won’t budge this time until the demands are met.People from the Maratha community poured into Mumbai early August 29. Many supporters, especially the youth, travelled from across different districts to be at Azad Maidan in Mumbai, a designated spot for protest. The state government which had earlier denied permission for protest, following the Bombay high court order, allowed the protest to be held in Mumbai but only between 9 am to 6 pm on Friday. However, the protesting community refused to budge as their leader continued with his hunger strike.Jarange-Patil has been demanding an earmarked 10% quota for the community under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category in the state. The Maratha community, along with its political dominance, is also considered to be numerically a sizeable community, with several state-set up commissions, researches putting the community population at around 30% of the state population. Since the enumeration is not done scientifically, many have contested this number too.In the existing quota share of 27% for the OBC communities, over 350 big and small communities fight for their share. Barring a few numerically and socially dominant ones, many communities still struggle to get adequate education for government jobs.Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has called the demand for 10% quota for the Marathas within the OBC quota “irrational”. “One has to understand that there are over 350 OBC communities in the state. We can’t do injustice to those communities while accommodating the Maratha community,” he said, following Jarange-Patil’s protest in Mumbai.Jarange-Patil started the protest from Antarwali Sarati village in Jalna district, 400-kilometres from Mumbai on August 27. The call for protest coincided with the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, an important public festival in the state, which in its own poses a major law and order challenge for the state police. His decision to bring the protest to the state capital, the state government claimed, was a strategy to make it cower down to the demands.The last time when Jarange-Patil had tried to demonstrate in Mumbai, he was stopped kilometres away in Vashi, Navi Mumbai. This time, looking at his resolve and the simmering anger within the community, Fadnavis has been making cautious moves.Fadnavis said that the state government’s “doors are open” for dialogue but also warned that Jarange Patil should not cross the “Laxman Rekha”. “Our government is committed to the socio-economic upliftment of the (Maratha) community. But we cannot buckle under the pressure that would lead to injustice to the OBC community,” he said.In the past, when Jarange-Patil raked this demand for reservation for the Maratha, the ruling BJP in Maharashtra had accused him of being politically motivated and not someone with the community’s social interest in mind. Interestingly, even when the tri-party Mahayuti government has two parties Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and NCP (Ajit Pawar) headed by leaders of the Maratha community, Jarange Patil has only trained his gun on Fadnavis, who belongs to the Brahmin community.In the past, Jarange-Patil and several protesting Maratha youths have faced police action and during a few agitations, the police had also resorted to violence. Jarange Patil had accused Fadnavis, who holds the ‘home’ portfolio, as the man behind the violent police crackdown.Fadnavis, without naming, has accused the opposition leaders Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar of being the brain behind the ongoing agitation. Thackeray, addressing a press conference in Mumbai, said: “They are not terrorists. They have come to Mumbai for their legitimate rights, not to create chaos. If the Maratha people are not going to protest in Mumbai, where else — Surat or Guwahati? Mumbai is the capital of Maratha people.” Thackeray, however, didn’t make his stand clear about the reservation for the community. “That is for Fadnavis and (Eknath) Shinde to respond… the ones who actually made such promises and have deceived the community,” he said.