Jolt for MVA govt. as farmer leader Raju Shetti exits MVA

His party was earlier a constituent of the BJP-led NDA government before he severed ties with the saffron party in 2017

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).

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.