Beed, Parli: How Maratha Quota Issue Affects Poll Outcomes

Parli and Beed assembly constituencies, which come under the Beed Lok Sabha constituency, have significant political dynamics, especially on the backdrop of the Maratha quota agitations. There are over 100 constituencies in Maharashtra that is expected to see fervors regarding the Maratha Vs OBC issues.

The Congress had long dominated Maharashtra politics with the support of Marathas, OBCs and other communities, while the BJP was reduced to only Brahmin appeals earlier. From understanding the political crux, the saffron party changed its strategy in the state where Marathas constitute 32 percent of the population, making the significant share of Congress vote bank, by promising Maratha reservation, including the fulfillment of the demand to give reservation to the Marathas as Kunbis under the OBC category and the implementation of draft notification of’sage-soyare’, a Marathi term for’relatives from the family tree.

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As the OBC leaders consistently oppose the Maratha reservation while the Marathas are disillusioned by the unfulfilled promises of the previous governments, the candidate selections for both the recently held Lok Sabha elections and the assembly election held on November 20 have been very careful. Notably, ahead of the assembly election, Congress leader Nana Patole has promised that the party would provide reservation to the Marathas, while blaming the BJP over their inability to do so.

The grand old party has been calling for a nation-wide caste census to address the reservations issues. The party also alleged that the BJP was raking up the OBC versus Maratha issue, underscoring that the saffron party was trying to do in Maharashtra what they did in Manipur. During the recent Lok Sabha election, the BJP and its allies faced significant electoral debacle while the MVA had an edge in the majority of the parliamentary seats, especially in Maratha belts.

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In the Beed assembly seat, as sitting MLA NCP SP’s Sandeep Kshirsagar challenges rival NCP’s Yogesh Kshirsagar, there have been several independent candidates, including the rebels—many with strong grassroot support capable of changing the winnability calculation of the major fronts over their promises.

In Parli assembly constituency, sitting MLA NCP’s Dhananjay Munde is challenging the rival NCP’s Rajesaheb Shrikishan Deshmukh in a high-stakes battle. Both are making all efforts to show factional dominance in addition to the previous Munde brother-sister feud to the Maratha vs. OBC dynamics. With the Munda family rivalry, the Maratha vs. OBC factor has not received much attention in the constituency. However, as the MVA offers reservation for Marathas while blaming the ruling party for failing to act on its promises, it is to see how the people’s mandate would reflect from the constituencies.