In the heat and dust of Hatkanangale four cornered fight, farmer leader and founder of Swambhimani Shetkari Sanghtana Raju Shetti is solely relying on crowdfunding to raise his electoral expenses. Shetti’s team said the leader has so far raised Rs 60 lakhs and by the time he is ready to file his nomination paper, his collection would cross over Rs 1 crore.
Spread between Sangli and Kolhapur districts, the Lok Sabha constituency of Hatkanangale this year has sitting MP Dhairyasheel Mane of Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde), fighting to be re-elected. Against him are Satyajit Patil Sarudkar of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) , Shetti and Prakash Awade the independent MLA from Ichalkarnaji who has decided to stand for the seat. Shetti had twice represented this seat before, being defeated by Mane in 2019. Awade is chairman of the Jawahar Cooperative Mill, while Mane and Patil have strong sugar connections.
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Since he lost the elections in 2019, Shetti has been trying to regroup his support. In order to regain ground, Shetti had relied on ensuring mills pay more than the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) to their farmers for the cane purchased.
Since the beginning of his political career, Shetti has relied upon crowdfunding to raise money for his campaigns. When he first stood for Assembly elections, his crowdfunding model had ensured he raised enough money to pay the deposit money. During 2009 and 2014 elections also he had raised money through crowdfunding. “This year, with inflation and earnings of farmers being low, most of us were circumspect about the success of the scheme. In fact during the first few weeks collections were low,” said a team member of Shetti.
However momentum then has picked up and his team said they have collected around Rs 60 lakh till date. “By the time we file the nomination papers on April 15, the collection could stand at Rs 1 crore,” he said. Crowd funding happens as Shetti addresses impromptu rallies or goes to villages. Voters spontaneously donate in boxes which are collected at the end of the day.
A similar scheme has been launched by the Congress as the party faces income tax actions against its bank accounts. Congress candidates in many parts of the country have resorted to crowdfunding to raise enough money to meet their election expenses.
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