While the Opposition bloc I.N.D.I.A was deliberating its way ahead on the last day of its two-day conclave in Mumbai, the Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders got an issue on a platter to corner the Mahayuti government with. Police atrocity was alleged in controlling the Maratha quota protest in Antarwali Sarati, a small town of over 4,000 people, near Ambad in Jalna district, one of the hotbeds of a prolonged agitation. An explanation came from the government. A probe was announced and decisive action assured in ensuring the quota that has been struck down by the Supreme Court will see reality. Arguments about the reasons for the case being defeated in court resurfaced, with both the ruling and Opposition parties involved in the process of quota in their respective regimes, making noises against each other.

The issue has flared up again, after a lull. It has never been only a socio-economic matter, but a wide platform for politics that depends on the single largest community (caste) of Maharashtra. The Maratha dominance has been a force to reckon with in Maharashtra politics, but that very influence, however, remained restricted to certain families, the community has argued while asking for reservation based on the economic and educational backwardness of the larger section of Marathas, that had been happy to have their representative as CM for decades. A non-Maratha CM is unthinkable here even now. A handful of exceptions-very recently Devendra Fadnavis and Uddhav Thackeray-ruled the state. Marathas were back in the throne with Eknath Shinde’s coronation last year. Another Maratha, Ajit Pawar, was inducted, in July this year, as the Dy CM. The then CM Prithviraj Chavan, also a Maratha, had issued an ordinance giving the community a quota, but that, too, didn’t stand the court’s scrutiny. Chavan’s successor Fadnavis came up with a quota that was ratified by the high court, but defeated in the Supreme Court when the MVA was in power.