Farmer leader and former MP Raju Shetti (Express Photo by Ashish Kale)
A day after he met Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and sought his support for contesting the Hatkanangle seat in Maharashtra in Lok Sabha elections 2024, farmer leader Raju Shetti on Sunday said he does not intend to join Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) ”as it has worked against the interest of farmers when it was in power.”
“Yesterday I met Uddhavji and sought his support for my candidature from Hatkanangle Lok Sabha seat,” Shetti, who heads the Swabhimani Paksha, told The Indian Express. Hatkanangle seat spans Sangli and Kolhapur districts.
Shetti said Thackeray had promised to decide in a couple of days. ”We had a cordial meeting. I told the Sena chief that they don’t have a strong candidate in Hatkanangle and, therefore, they should announce their support to me. Uddhavji has promised to decide after consulting the Sena leaders in Sangli and Kolhapur districts,” Shetti said.
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When contacted, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut said the Sena was ready to support Shetti but had put a condition on it. ”We are ready to support Shetty’s candidature for the Hatkanangle seat. We have told him that he should be a Shiv Sena-sponsored Maha Vikas Aghadi candidate. The ball is in his court. He told us that he would get back to us. Anyways, we will soon take the decision on his request,” Raut said.
Shetti said he could not join the MVA ahead of Lok Sabha elections 2024 because it had worked against the interest of the farmers. ”The MVA, when it was in power, had amended the law and reduced the compensation given to farmers to acquire their land for development purposes. The government is constructing Shaktipeeth Expressway from Nagpur to Goa. For this, it is acquiring 27,000 acres of land, but the farmers will be getting paltry compensation due to the amendment made by the MVA during its tenure. The Mahayuti government has made no change in it. And therefore, we are against both MVA and Mahayuti,” he said.
In 2019, Shetti lost to Dhairyasheel Mane from the Hatkanangle seat. At that time, Mane was with the Shiv Sena, led by Uddhav Thackeray. Since then, he has switched allegiance to the Shiv Sena, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Mane is likely to be fielded again by the Shinde Sena.
Shetti said he has approached Uddhav Sena for support, not the ruling Mahayuti alliance of Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde), the BJP and the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar). ”But some Mahayuti leaders who approached me urged me to contest on a BJP ticket. Why should I contest on a BJP ticket when I have my own separate party? I am not interested in joining Mahayuti,” he said.
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Shetti said since both the MVA and Mahayuti are ready to support him, they should ensure his unopposed election. ”Both MVA and Mahayuti are not against me and are ready to support me. Why can’t they ensure an unopposed election to the Lok Sabha? Can’t they have one strong farmers’ voice in the Lok Sabha?” he asked.
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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