Dipke meets Jarange-Patil on day 14 of Maratha reservation fast, urges him to end it

Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, met Manoj Jarange-Patil at Antarwali Sarati on September 11, 2026, and asked him to end his hunger strike, which had entered its fourteenth day. Mr. Jarange-Patil has been fasting in support of reservation for the Maratha community.

In a post on X the same day, Mr. Dipke said he had met the fasting activist and inquired about his health. He wrote that Maharashtra needs Mr. Jarange-Patil and requested that he call off the fast and look after his health.

Mr. Dipke said the strike was not for Mr. Jarange-Patil himself but for society, and that it was aimed at securing education and employment for children of the Maratha community. Had the government provided those opportunities, he said, there would have been no need for a hunger strike. He described the situation as a failure of the government, which he said was elected to work for the people but had left them in the lurch.

Referring to Prathamesh Deshmukh, whose house he said he visited on September 10, 2026, after the man took his own life over a loan of ₹2.5 lakh, Mr. Dipke said Mr. Jarange-Patil was fasting so that people would not have to die and would have access to education and employment.

Mr. Dipke questioned why the government had not come to Antarwali Sarati to hold talks with Mr. Jarange-Patil, and asked what the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Ministers were doing. He said Ministers send their own children abroad to study while lamenting the poor state of educational infrastructure in villages. In his post, he wrote that the hunger strike showed people no longer have faith in the government, and again appealed to Mr. Jarange-Patil to end it.