Saffron parties weave caste tangle to trip up farm leader

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, April 21

Five years after he joined hands with BJP-Shiv Sena combine to help defeat the sugar barons of the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party in Western Maharashtra, farm leader and head of the Swabhimani Shetkari Paksh Raju Shetti is contesting in his third Lok Sabha election is now at the crossroads.

Upset at what he calls, the anti-farmer policies of the BJP-led

governments at the state and the centre, Shetti quit the NDA despite his then party colleague Sadabhau Khot being given the agriculture portfolio by the Devendra Fadnavis government. 

Khot refused to resign as minister and Shetti expelled him from the SSP. 

Till the declaration of elections, Shetti was mobilizing farmers against the co-operative barons of the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party over non-payment of dues by the sugar factories.

While only a part of the Fair and Remunerative Price for sugarcane prescribed by the Central government has been paid to farmers till now, Shetti has quietly changed track and tied up with the Congress-NCP against the Shiv Sena and the BJP for the Lok Sabha elections.

On the other hand, several prominent sugar barons have quit

the Congress-NCP and are in the BJP, and to a lesser extent, the Shiv Sena camp.

Of major concern in the region is the pending dues by sugar factories to farmers which touched Rs 4000 crores till the middle of April.

Shetti, who built his political career on the back of a long list of

agitations by cane farmers for higher prices, is now defending his decision to align with the Congress and the NCP - his old foes.

"We have so far cleared 80 per cent of the dues to farmers, but they (sugar co-operatives controlled by BJP and Shiv Sena leaders) have not even cleared 50 per cent," Raju Shetti says at several meetings.

Sharing the state with Shetti at public meetings is NCP leader and co-operative baron Jayant Patil whose empire extends into the fields of sugar, milk and educational institutions.

Shetti has organized numerous agitations against Patil in the past, so the newfound bonhomie between the two is a surprise. 

However, say sources in the region, Patil's co-operatives have managed to clear most of the dues to farmers and has promised to pay up the remaining as soon as subsidies arrive from the central government.

The Shiv Sena, which has fielded a Maratha leader Dhairyasheel Mane against Shetti, is playing the caste card against the farm leader who is a Jain by religion. 

The BJP is pitching in by mobilizing the powerful Lingayat community in his favour.

However, Jayant Patil stepped in and mobilized several Maratha organizations behind Shetti.

As an overture to the community Shetti's SSP has even fielded from the Sangli seat Vishal Patil who heads a sugar factory named after his grandfather - former Maharashtra strongman Vasantdada Patil.

Campaigning has turned vitriolic in Hatkanangale with comments on caste overshadowing farm issues at times. 

Shetti himself had to apologize after making some comments against the Brahmin community.