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Now, silent Maratha marchers raise voice in Pune

Lakhs of people, including men and women, students, working professionals, lawyers and doctors from the community, participated in the march.

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Around a million people marching towards the historic city, 8000-odd volunteers, four control rooms, more than a million missed calls, retired police officers and more than a lakh women participants – these were the highlights of the silent Maratha Kranti Morcha staged in Pune on Sunday.

Lakhs of people, including men and women, students, working professionals, lawyers and doctors from the community, participated in the march, under the umbrella of Maratha Kranti Mook Morcha.

The agitation continued for three hours as protesters marched from Deccan Gymkhana to Council hall, where six girls submitted a memorandum and charter of demands to Pune district collector Saurabh Rao.

The demands of the Maratha revolution march or Kranti Morcha participants were on the lines of silent protesters in the other cities. The demands included capital punishment for the perpetrators of the Kopardi rape and murder case, reservation benefits for the Maratha community, loan waiver for farmers, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj memorial at the Arabian Sea and a separate institute on the lines of the Babasaheb Ambedkar Research and Training Institute (BARTI) for the welfare of the Maratha community.

Medha Kurumkar, Pooja Thigale, Nupoor Darekar, Karishma Pardhi, Vishakha Bhalerao and Saniya Tapkir handed over the memorandum of demands to district collector Rao. Sunetra Pawar, wife of Ajit Pawar, along with partners of many other politicians, as well as former mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale and NCP city unit president and former mayor Vandana Chavan participated in the silent march.

All the MLAs and MP Anil Shirole of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won all the eight Assembly seats in the city, made it a point to attend the morcha for obvious reasons.

The march started around 10-30am and ended at 1pm. All main roads in the city had been blocked for traffic and organisers ensured that the women started the march from the main market road – Laxmi Road. After the women had covered almost 3km from the starting point, the others were allowed to start.

The total route of the march was over 5km and five to six routes were taken simultaneously. The riverside road along Mutha was full of people walking with saffron flags in their hands and following the instructions given out on loud speakers.

Retired police officers, who have been handling Ganesh immersion processions in the city for many years now, were asked to chip in by the organisers. The former cops helped to streamline the march's movement.

Once the women reached the Council Hall, almost all major roads in the city started flooding with participants. Almost all grounds adjoining the main roads were full of four-wheelers, since Maratha activists from 13 talukas as well as from other districts also participated in big numbers.

A city of over 4 million people, Pune is famous for its communal harmony and is also known as the cultural and educational capital of the state. Leaders of Maratha organisations such as Sambhaji Brigade and Maratha Sewa Sangh also hail from the city. Conducting the silent march in Pune was a big challenge for the organisers as many political bigwigs, including Ajit Pawar, Harshawardhan Patil, Vijay Shivtare, Vishwajeet Kadam and Shivaji Adhalrao-Patil hail from the Pune district.

March highlights

- Four control rooms
- Use of walkie-talkies
- Use of drones for aerial photography
- Around 8000 volunteers
- Water supply in abundance for protesters
- Katraj Dairy milk and butter-milk distributed among people

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