Reeling under the onslaught of probes by central enforcement agencies, the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress received another setback after Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS) chief Raju Shetti on Tuesday official announced his outfit’s exit from the MVA coalition.
Mr. Shetti, an influential farmer leader in Maharashtra’s ‘sugar belt’ districts of Kolhapur and Sangli, had been disaffected with the MVA parties since October last year over the payment of the fair and remunerative price (FRP) to farmers. Mr. Shetti has been criticising the State government’s practice of paying FRP to farmers in two instalments instead of at one go.
Making the announcement at the SSS’ executive meet in Kolhapur, he, however said he would not be joining the BJP’s ranks and that his outfit would henceforth fight on its own for the interests of Maharashtra’s farmers.
“I declare that as of today, we have nothing more to do with the MVA and all our relations are at an end. We were cheated by those in power in Delhi [BJP] as well as those in Mumbai [Shiv Sena, NCP, Congress],” said Mr. Shetti, a former two-time MP from Hatkanangale in Kolhapur district.
Once a constituent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance, Mr. Shetti had severed ties with the BJP in 2017 and went on to become a vociferous critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies.
The farmer leader, who had backed the NCP and the Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, was defeated in the general election that year after losing the Hatkanangale seat to the Sena’s Dhairyasheel Mane (the Sena and the BJP were allies at the time).
Key player
Considered a key player in the State’s ‘sugar belt’ politics, Mr. Shetti first came to political prominence in 2004 as an avowed nemesis of Mr. Pawar and the ‘sugar lobby’ headed by NCP and Congress politicos.
At the time, Mr. Shetti, who heads the ‘Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana’, had said his political mission was to put all sugar barons behind bars.
After winning the Shirol Assembly seat as an Independent in 2004, he trumped the NCP’s MP Nivedita Mane in the 2009 general election, to win by a margin of more than 95,000 votes. In 2014, his party allied with the BJP and was re-elected by an even greater margin of 1.77 lakh votes.
However, since Mr. Shetti exited the BJP-led NDA in August 2017, he has been a vociferous critic of the Narendra Modi and the Devendra Fadnavis governments at the Centre and the State.
Yet, his alliance with Mr. Pawar and the Congress proved costly as he was trounced in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Since then, Mr. Shetti, has been increasingly disenchanted with the MVA government as well, accusing them of slighting him and the interests of the farmers.
The bitterness increased after an attempt last year on the MVA’s part to get Mr. Shetii elected as an MLC (Member of Legislative Council) under the Governor’s quota became a cropper.
At the 20th annual ‘sugar conclave’ held in Jaysingpur in western Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district last year, Mr. Shetti urged farmers to protest against the MVA leaders by showing black flags.
While he was been spearheading agitations of milk and sugarcane farmers for better prices at regular intervals, Mr. Shetti has been projecting himself as the famers’ mascot in the run-up to the polls.
