In last few days, the ‘paathaks’ or team engaged in a survey said the number of Maratha homes getting listed are in single digits against 1,000 target homes.“Probably most Marathas live in western flank or Marathwada,” said a supervisor.
Another supervisor said with such few numbers of target homes, enumerators feel the drive is meaningless or going in the wrong direction. “The government initiated a special drive under pressure from Maratha quota activists. It failed to identify areas which have a high concentration of the community. Ideally, the government wants to study backwardness of the Maratha community, but what is happening is that we are covering an open-category population,” the supervisor said.
An enumerator said majority houses had only reserved or open-category people during the survey. “Some of us thought we have to officially cover every house, but data collation was not complete,” the enumerator said.
A government teacher said the numbers appear inflated as it’s not possible to cover a large number of residents in a short time. “It has an exhaustive questionnaire, and it is not possible to cover 5 lakh homes in five days,” the teacher said.
Rahul Bavge, HoD of political science, Vasantrao Naik Government Institute of Arts and Social Sciences, said Vidarbha may have less than 1% Maratha population. “Either kunbis dominated this region from the beginning or Marathas became kunbis before and after Independence. Among OBCs, Vidarbha has 99% kunbi population. Panjabrao Deshmukh’s influence on Marathas too can’t be undermined. Many took kunbi certificates on Deshumkh’s call to seek benefits under OBC category then,” he said.
Bavge added Western Maharashtra and Marathwada was once popular for Shanno Kuli Marathas (refers to 96 Maratha clans) as they were feudal lords in those days. “As their land holdings depleted and Maratha faced financial backwardness, they realised the importance of reservation,” he said.
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