This is an archive article published on May 16, 2014
A farmer leader’s fate may decide fortunes of several constituencies
Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana chief Raju Shetti on a strong wicket as Hatkanangle awaits result of ‘a fight between sugarcane farmers & sugar barons’.
Hatkanangle is one of the most talked about constituencies in Maharashtra. The fight here, one of the most acrimonious ones, was described as the one between sugarcane farmers and sugar barons. At 72 per cent, it also witnessed the highest turnout in Maharashtra. The mega alliance of BJP-Shiv Sena-RPI had fielded Raju Shetti, a farmer leader, while the Congress-NCP alliance had roped in octogenarian sugar baron Kalappa Awade.
In the seat-sharing arrangement, Hatkanangle had come to NCP’s kitty. The party, however, struggled to find a candidate to take on the “might” of Shetti. With even its top leaders like Jayant Patil and R R Patil refusing to take up the challenge, the NCP returned the seat to Congress, which decided to field out-of-favour politician Kalappa Awade.
Shetti’s joining it was a coup of sorts for the BJP-led alliance as it will have, say political pundits, a bearing on 25-30 Assembly seats in Sangli, Karad, Kolhpaur, Hatkanangle, Madha and even in Solapur areas populated by cane farmers.
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His close associates believe Shetti wouldn’t have joined the alliance had it not been for his antipathy for NCP chief Sharad Pawar. Pawar was apparently nervous over the growing clout of Shetti among farmers. The farmers’ leader was drawing huge crowds at his rallies and even agitations where Pawar saw miniscule presence of farmers whenever he toured the sugar belt of Sangli-Satara-Kolhapur. “In the last elections too, Pawar had gone all out to defeat Shetti, but didn’t succeed,” said a close aide.
Shetti too acknowledges Pawar’s “desperate bid” to oust him from Western Maharashtra. “They (some NCP leaders) have done everything possible to make me disappear from Western Maharashtra. I have been threatened and even attacked, but they have failed to dampen my spirit. In fact, because NCP has gone all out against me, the support for me has only grown,” he said.
In this constituency of 16 lakh people, every household either belongs to a farmer or a farm labourer. The constituency spans two districts of Kolhapur and Sangli. Shetti has found massive favour here primarily because of his agitations to get higher prices for sugarcane.
Last October-November, Shetti organised the biggest agitation that led to a few sugar factories announcing higher sugarcane prices. The sugar barons who run the sugar factories, mostly dominated by NCP-Congress leaders, had consistently refused to give higher cane prices to farmers while arguing that they would have to close down their units if they did so. However, Shetti’s repeated agitations over the years forced the sugar barons to give in.
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“Our agitations have brought joys on the faces of cane farmers who had been exploited by the sugar barons for years,” says Shetti.
In several villages The Indian Express toured during the elections, the farmers seemed to be resolutely backing Shetti. In Kharatwadi village of Islampur taluka, several families openly voiced their support for Shetti. “In Assembly elections, we might vote differently, but in the LS polls Shetti remains our favourite. He got us justice for our cane, nobody did it for years,” said Krishna Kharat, 60, a villager.
Though political pundits believe Shetti would win by a record margin this time — he won by over 90,000 votes last time — Shetti is worried about his vote share coming down because of the rally held by BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in the neighbouring Sangli constituency.
“I am a little confused as to how Muslim citizens have voted. This is because of the Modi rally held in Sangli. Though I am hopeful the Muslim farmers have voted for me, at the same time I am worried as there was an anti-Modi wave to a small extent here,” he said.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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