Manoj Jarange Patil

Some Lesser Known Facts About Manoj Jarange Patil

• Manoj Jarange Patil originally belonged to the Matori village in Maharashtra’s Beed district but settled in Ankushnagar in the Jalna district.

  

• According to various media reports, his house on the two-acre farm has three pieces of furniture — a three-seater couch and two armchairs. The furniture is covered with statues and photographs of Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and framed posters and newspaper articles of himself.

  

• After moving there, he started working at a hotel.

• He later became the district youth president for Congress and worked there till 2004. He never had the chance to run in an election.

• A leader from the Maratha group Sambhaji Brigade revealed the reason why Patil left the party and said that he was unhappy with the Congress party on how they handled protests about a controversial book titled “Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India” (2003) by James Laine.

• The book raised sensitive questions about the parenting of Shivaji which caused anger among the Marathas. This led to the destruction of important documents at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, which helped with the book’s research. Many people were arrested during the incident.
• In 2008, he became part of the movement for reservations for the Maratha community in government jobs and education.

• In 2011, started a group named Shivba Sanghatana to arrange protests for the Maratha reservation.

  

• According to a media report, Patil is backed by six of his closest aides in Jalna district including Pandurang Tarakh, Ramesh Tarakh, Pradeep Solunke, Shreeram Kurankar, Sanjay Katare, and Dhananjay Duphake.

• They have been an important part of his rallies since the beginning. They helped him draw a rough plan for his travels, planned where he should deliver speeches and made arrangements for accommodation and food.

• In 2013, he went on a hunger strike for 13 days in Shahgadh village to support the Maratha reservation in his first protest. Then, he did another hunger strike for about eight to nine days before the Jalna police chief’s office.

• In 2016, the gang rape and murder of a Maratha girl in Kopardi caused a lot of protests by Marathas. Patil was a leading figure in these protests as well.

• During the Maratha Kranti Morcha protests in Mumbai in 2016-17, Patil gathered Marathas from the Marathwada region and led them to the state’s capital for the protests.

• He participated in many protests and even sold 2.5 acres of his 4-acre farm to pay for his daily expenses.

• After the Supreme Court cancelled the Maratha reservation in 2021, Patil participated in protests in different areas. This included a three-month protest in Sasht-Pimpalgaon in Jalna district, where many people supported him.

• The Maratha protester gained attention during a hunger strike in August 2023 when Chief Minister Shinde convinced him to stop the protest by promising to set up a committee to explore giving Kunbi caste certificates to Marathas.

• On the fourth day of the protest, police tried to take him to the hospital by force. This led to a fight between the police and Patil’s supporters. The situation became worse with a baton charge, teargas, and reports of harsh police actions.

  

• Patil then started another hunger strike in September. He broke his fast by drinking fruit juice from Chief Minister Eknath Shinde after 16 days of strike.

  

• He, then, gave the government another two months to sort things out. A group of top ministers and retired judges from the government talked to him and asked him to wait until 24 December 2023 to which he agreed.

• On 26 December 2023, he made an announcement that he will start a march to Mumbai and start a hunger strike until death at Azad Maidan after reaching the city.

• Patil later addressed the rally and sat on an indefinite hunger strike at the Azad Maidan in Mumbai on 20 January 2024, demanding the issue of Kunbi certificates to all Marathas that would grant them the benefits earmarked for the OBC quota.

  

• On 27 January, the chief minister Eknath Shinde came to meet him and gave him a written draft in which he promised to issue Kunbi certificates 54 lakh Marathas with Kunbi backgrounds.

• However, soon after he stopped his protest on 27 January, the government invited suggestions and objections to the notification until February 16 after which Patil declared to resume his protest until the first Kunbi certificate was issued.

• During the march in January 2024, Patil and his supporters also warned that they would try to prevent Prime Minister Narendra Modi from holding campaign events in the state for the national elections if their requests were ignored.

• He started his hunger strike again on 10 February 2024. After his health got worse, he was given medicine through an IV. This happened on the fifth day of his hunger strike. He finally ended his huger strike after 17 days on 26 February 2024.

  

• As of 2024, he has participated in 39 protests since 2011.

• A Marathi language film named ‘Sangharsh Yoddha Manoj Jarange Patil’ was made by Shivaji Doltade, based on the life of Manoj Jarange Patil. The film was scheduled to be released on 26 April 2024.

  

• On 29 August 2025, Manoj Jarange began a hunger strike at Azad Maidan in Mumbai, demanding a 10% OBC quota for Marathas and caste certificates for those with Kunbi lineage, verified through old records and pre-1961 land documents.

• After five days, the Maharashtra government agreed and issued a resolution on 3 September 2025. Jarange ended his fast after Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil offered him juice.