Maratha bike rally to be followed with bigger marches

The Maratha bike rally witnessed thousands of people attending the event on Sunday. The Maratha rallies that are being held across the state were being planned in the city for a while. Like all the previous ones, the Sunday rally too was silent with no one shouting slogans. The rally started at the K J Somaiya ground with both men and women participating in it. Almost all wore black T-shirts and carried saffron flag and Shivaji's photograph. The rally that was expected to have 10,000 bikers and an additional 2,000 women bikers had a number of prominent faces marching alongside. They insisted on being called volunteers.

"There were people still starting from K J Somiaya when the rally had already reached CST," said Rajan Ghag, organiser of the Maratha Kranti Morcha, who preferred to call himself a volunteer. Ghag further claimed, "Since the stretch from K J Somaiya to CST is over 15 kms long we think around 50,000 to one lakh people must have participated as compared to the 10,000 who had orginally registered with us."

The rallies have been demanding justice for a rape case victim, reservation and toning down of the Atrocities Act. The group stated that there will be another prominent march in Nagpur during the Maharashtra Assembly's winter session on December 14. "We decided to have a big rally in Nagpur on December 14 during the winter session. If our demands are not met then we will have an even bigger rally in Mumbai that will see one crore Marathas participate in it. Mumbai's population is around 1.3 crores, 26 percent of which are Marathas," said Ghag.