With an eye on the upcoming Assembly elections and aiming to reassert its identity within the ruling alliance while countering the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the BJP in Maharashtra has decided to take a more assertive stance on the contentious Maratha quota issue.

The BJP’s core committee believes its previous cautious approach has allowed the Opposition to exploit caste-based polarization to their advantage. “This was evident in the recent Lok Sabha polls, where our tally fell from 23 in 2019 to nine in the state. The party has now prepared a factsheet to expose the MVA’s falsehoods on the issue,” sources revealed.

The BJP plans to use the factsheet to inform the public that the Bombay High Court upheld Maratha reservation during its 2018 tenure under then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. They aim to pin the blame on Uddhav Thackeray, the then CM and current Sena (UBT) chief, for the Supreme Court’s 2021 scrapping of the quota due to his “failure to substantiate the community’s backwardness.”

Insiders say this changed approach is also reflected in Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s recent remarks in Maharashtra, where he praised Fadnavis’s leadership from 2014 to 2019 for effectively addressing the Maratha issue. Shah stated, “The Maratha community has got reservation whenever the BJP is in power. However, the community was deprived of reservation when the Sharad Pawar-led coalition came to power in the state.”

Shah’s endorsement of Fadnavis is significant, especially as activist Manoj Jarange-Patil, a leading figure in the Maratha quota agitation, has portrayed the Deputy CM as opposed to the reservation. As a Brahmin leader, Fadnavis is seen as being at a disadvantage on this issue compared to CM Eknath Shinde and fellow Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, both Marathas.

At the Pune conclave, Fadnavis challenged Opposition leaders Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray, and Nana Patole to clarify their stance on the Maratha quota. He questioned, “Do you support reservation for Marathas under the OBC category?”

Following Shah’s visit, Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekar Bawankule asserted that the party has no reason to be defensive. “The Opposition is framing us through a fake narrative. We have decided to go hammer and tongs to put forward our stand,” he stated.

The BJP and Fadnavis have been on the defensive since August last year, following a lathicharge on pro-Maratha reservation protesters in Jalna district, which intensified anger and led to Jarange-Patil’s prominence. Fadnavis eventually issued a public apology to defuse tensions.

The BJP hopes to mitigate the Maratha versus OBC polarization at the village level, aiming to regain ground ahead of the Assembly polls. The party has set a target of winning over 125 of the 288 seats, while the Mahayuti aims for over 200.

In 2014, the BJP won 122 Assembly seats, its highest ever in the state, but secured only 105 in 2019. Both elections were contested in alliance with the undivided Sena. Now, there is a multipolar contest due to the split within the Sena and NCP.

The BJP’s counter-attack coincides with Jarange-Patil renewing his quota protests and starting another indefinite hunger strike. He had paused his protests ahead of the Lok Sabha elections after the Shinde government granted 10% reservation to Marathas in jobs and education through the Socially and Educationally Backward Class (SEBC) Act in February.