Vinayak Tukaram Mete was a prominent voice in the demand for reservation for Marathas in Maharashtra. The 52-year-old politician died in a car crash on Sunday. He was on his way to Mumbai for a meeting called by the state’s chief minister Eknath Shinde to discuss Maratha issues.

Vinayak Mete was the founder and chief of the Shiv Sangram, a small regional party focused on Maratha issues. He was an ally of the BJP in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and his party contested elections on the BJP symbol.

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Mete was a member of Maharashtra’s legislative council for five terms.

Who was Vinayak Mete?

Vinayak Mete was born on June 30, 1970, to a non-political family from Rajegaon village in Beed district of what is called the Marathwada region of Maharashtra. He had a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree from the Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University in Nashik.

As part of an organisation called the Maratha Mahasangh, Vinayak became a member of the legislative council or MLC at 25. He had the support of the Shiv Sena and the BJP, then partners and in power in Maharashtra.

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Vinayak Mete also founded a party called the Maharashtra Lokvikas Party, but soon joined Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, always focused on his demand for quota for Marathas in schools and colleges and in government jobs. He continued to be an MLC and was also made vice president of the NCP.

But Mete was not settled yet in his political quest. He parted ways with the NCP accusing the party of not doing enough for the Maratha cause, launched the Shiv Sangram and was back on the BJP side. Through these political changes, he managed to secure support for new terms in the legislative council.

Vinayak Mete contested the Maharashtra assembly elections in 2014 from Beed under the BJP symbol, but lost to the NCP’s Jaydattji Kshirsagar. In that election, he declared 11.75 crore in assets and 32 lakh in liabilities.

Mete, always at the centre of protests and rallies asserting a Maratha identity, had in 2008 attacked the residence of an editor of a Marathi daily because it had published an editorial against the decision to install a statue of Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Mahraj in the Arabian Sea.

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Mete headed a committee overseeing progress on the project to build the massive Shivaji Maharaj statue in the Arabian Sea off Mumbai’s coast. The foundation stone for the statue was laid in 2016 and it is expected to be finished in a few months.

Mete is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.