<div><strong>By D.P. Sharan</strong></div><div> </div><div>The BJP appears to be working out multi-pronged strategies to ward off possible threats from rising prices - in a sequel to that experienced by pulses - of agricultural goods.</div><div> </div><div>While the party is exploring economic solutions through political gambits, it is all set to resolve the political crisis in the Western region in particular by roping in trade bodies that are dominated by political stalwarts.</div><div> </div><div>The BJP, which has been instrumental by proxy in poll-bound Bihar to abet the divide in the non-NDA grand alliance and the newly-formed third-front, has made enough political overtures towards Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar recently.</div><div> </div><div>The party can neither afford to ignore a political crisis in Maharashtra, where it has a coalition government with the Shiv Sena, nor can it resolve the issues of price rise of pulses and other commodities without negotiating with the economic bodies that hold substantial control over agricultural produce and their marketing.</div><div> </div><div>The ongoing mutual distrust between the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena in Maharashtra is believed to have reached an alarming level and the BJP is on the lookout for an alternative partner to dump the Shiv Sena.</div><div> </div><div>The NCP is believed to be the party's ideal choice to provide an alternative to the Shiv Sena.</div><div> </div><div>Political experts believe the NCP and Pawar are supposed to play a key role to help the BJP get rid of both the political and economic crises. Pawar has complete control over the association of cooperative societies that implicitly determine the pricing and marketing of agricultural produce in Maharashtra and many other states that are supplied commodities by Maharashtra.</div><div> </div><div>There are about 2.3 lakh cooperative societies in Maharashtra and barring a few, all of them are dominated by NCP and the Congress. Victory in the regular elections to the cooperative societies for any political party is believed to be significant in the light of the fact that they hold the reign of the rural economy: cooperative banks, sugar mills and dairies.</div><div> </div><div>Since private agencies dominate the Indian foodgrain trade and farmers often complain of getting lower prices for their produces owing to flaws in the marketing system and other malpractices, cooperative societies are expected to function as competitors to private traders in favour of farmers.</div><div> </div><div>The cooperative organizations have been recognized for the marketing of the produce of farmers and making inputs available for them at the right price and time. These cooperative institutions pool the produce of the small farmers with a small surplus in the market and improve their bargaining power. They also help government agencies in the execution of the policy decision bearing on the procurement and distribution of foodgrains and other essential commodities.</div><div> </div><div>They act as agents of the government in the procurement of foodgrains and other commodities at the announced procurement or support prices.</div><div> </div><div>The state-level marketing cooperative societies have their apex organization, the National Agriculture Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED), which is the central nodal agency for undertaking price support operations for pulses and oilseeds.</div><div> </div><div>While the state marketing federations and the national cooperative development corporations are members of NAFED with its headquarters at Delhi and branches in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, it has jurisdiction across the country.</div><div> </div><div>As such, cooperative societies under the control of the NCP or Pawar are potent enough to dictate their terms as members to NAFED while deciding prices for pulses and oilseeds.</div><div> </div><div>The recent past bears testimony to the growing proximity between the BJP and the NCP. Senior leaders of BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, have hailed Pawar's role in public in their bid to send political overture towards him.</div><div> </div><div>While Modi shared in public how Pawar had been cordial and supportive to him when he was the CM of Gujarat and Pawar was the agriculture minister at the Centre, Jaitley visited Pawar's home town Baramati in Pune district recently in connection with attending a function at an educational institution that has been founded by Pawar.</div><div> </div><div>Jaitley praised the Baramati-model of development under the leadership of Pawar and endorsed the schemes to be replicated across the country. In fact, the NCP has 41 MLAs in the Maharashtra Assembly while the BJP, with a numerical strength of 122 legislators in the house of 288 members, requires only 15 MLAs to hold on to power if it severs ties with the Shiv Sena.</div><div> </div><div>Subsequently, the NCP has preferred to move out of alliances in the fray against the BJP and its alliance partners in Bihar. First, the NCP severed its ties with the non-NDA Grand Alliance and then it moved out of the third front too - albeit reacting the to the pro-BJP statement by its co-ally Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.</div><div> </div><div>Indeed, the overture appears to be entirely political and seems nothing beyond an exercise by the BJP to settle scores with a tormenting Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, but possibilities of an ulterior economic motive behind the strategic political move cannot be ruled out too.</div>
