In Marathwada roiled by quota row, Maratha, OBC faultline flares as Mahayuti vs MVA battle heats up

In the BJP’s Beed district office, the visitors are greeted by a large cutout of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they take the swirling steel staircase leading up to the first floor. Inside the chamber of the party’s district chief Rajendra Maske there, a smiling portrait of Maharashtra BJP stalwart late Gopinath Munde adorns a wall as people breeze in and out of the busy office.

The Beed Lok Sabha constituency is witnessing a straight fight between BJP leader and ex-minister Pankaja Munde, daughter of Gopinath Munde, and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar)’s candidate Bajrang Sonwane.

A prominent Vanjari (OBC) face, Pankaja had been estranged from the BJP for some time, but the party has now placated her by fielding her from her home turf. She has replaced her younger sister Pritam Munde, the two-time MP, who had joined politics after the death of their father in 2014.

Interestingly, Pawar has again chosen to field Sonwane, a Maratha face, although he was defeated by Pritam in 2019 by 1.68 lakh votes. In the NCP(SP)’s Beed office, the makeover following the split in the party looks complete with its new name painted in bold along with the symbol of a “man blowing tutari (trumpet)”.

Beed is one of the eight districts in the Marathwada region, which has been the epicentre of an intense agitation over the last several months for quotas for Marathas in jobs and education, which led to counter-protests by the OBCs.

The ruling Mahayuti alliance comprising Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, the BJP and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP finally passed a new law in the state legislature in February this year to extend 10% separate reservation to Marathas. It has been challenged in the Bombay High Court, where the matter has