Overview
- Manoj Jarange Patil began an indefinite hunger strike on Saturday, May 30, 2026, in Antarwali Sarati, Jalna, sitting exposed to the sun without food or water to press Maratha reservation demands.
- A Maharashtra government delegation led by minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil met Jarange before the fast and handed a written draft and a standard operating procedure for issuing Kunbi certificates but failed to secure his withdrawal.
- Officials told Jarange that roughly 2.5 lakh Kunbi certificates had been issued with further recent issuances and that most protest cases had been withdrawn, while Jarange rejected those figures as inadequate.
- The standoff hinges on a factual dispute over historical records: Jarange cites some 58 lakh historical 'Kunbi' entries as a basis for mass certification and the government says that figure is misunderstood and many entries have not been located or verified.
- The protest highlights wider bottlenecks in verification work by the Sandeep Shinde committee, language and archival hurdles from Hyderabad and Satara gazetteers, and political and legal risks for students and families waiting for caste validity and access to reservations.