Raju Shetty fights to stay relevant as farmers’ neta

New Delhi: Raju Shetty starts early in the morning with small corner meetings with farmers in rural Sangli and Kolhapur. With several such meetings during the day, he addresses a few bigger rallies in the evening. He is focusing mostly on five assembly seats, which his party Swabhiman Shetkari Sangathan (SSS) is contesting in alliance with Congress-NCP.

The assembly election is going to be the biggest litmus test for a noted farmer-leader of the state who was twice an
MP before losing his Hatkanangle seat to Shiv Sena this time. Shetty puts the blame on EVMs and Pulwama for his Lok Sabha defeat. “I never trusted EVMs and I challenge to conduct election on ballot paper in my constituency and defeat me,” Shetty told ET.


“Also, the youth were misguided by BJP’s campaign after Pulwama attack. This time the farmers know what the real issues are and would back the opposition alliance.” Shetty had quite an influence in sugarcane belt of Western Maharashtra and raised farmer’s issues of the region. In 2004, he became an MLA from Shirol for the first time. In 2009, he won Hatkanangle to become an MP.

In 2014, he joined NDA and again became an MP. However just before 2019, Shetty joined the opposition camp and his party contested two Lok Sabha seats and lost both. SSS had contested 12 seats as a part of NDA in 2014 and couldn’t win one. “The BJP and Sena workers didn’t support us,” he says. This time he targets to win at least four of the five seats SSS is contesting.

However he is unhappy with alliance partners Congress and NCP as at some places their leaders are contesting independently. In Shirol, from where he began his political career, rebel NCP candidate is creating trouble for his candidate Sawkar Madnaik. Just before the assembly elections, Shetty also got a setback in terms of three senior leaders of his party moving away to join the BJP.

“If you compare the exodus of leaders from Congress and NCP, ours is nothing,” Shetty told ET. “This is what BJP is doing. They are buying good leaders from the opposition side.”