Why Manikrao Kokate kept getting second chances

Not repeated controversies nor conduct unbecoming of a minister, but Kokate’s past ultimately caught up with him

MUMBAI: Time could be running out for Manikrao Kokate, a politician with an almost enviable knack for stirring controversies – and surviving them.

NCP leader Manikrao Kokate (Bhushan Koyande/HT Photo)

After demeaning his office, insulting farmers, and playing online card games while the House was in session, the NCP leader and the state’s sports and youth welfare minister was stripped of his portfolio on Wednesday after a Nashik court issued an arrest warrant against him.

Kokate and his brother have been charged with cheating and forgery to secure flats under the government’s EWS quota. The warrant was issued after the Sessions Court upheld the lower court’s verdict, sentencing Kokate to two years’ imprisonment.

A loose cannon, who flaunted what he believed was political immunity, Kokate was ultimately seen as a liability by the Mahayuti government, especially with crucial civic elections around the corner.

Making the right moves

Now 68, Kokate has switched parties many times, representing the Sinnar assembly constituency five times. An opportunist, his moves on the political chessboard usually landed him in the ruling parties’ camp. Most recently, he found himself in a ministerial position – a first – when the BJP-led Mahayuti government returned to power last year.

The Maratha politician from Nashik district, known for his fondness for jackets and blazers, has changed political parties at least half a dozen times. He began his career with the Congress, then joined the NCP. When he failed to get a ticket for assembly elections, he moved to the Shiv Sena and managed to secure a ticket, getting elected from Sinnar in 1999 and 2004.

Considered a loyalist of Narayan Rane, Kokate followed him when he split the Shiv Sena and joined the Congress in 2005. He won from Sinnar on a Congress ticket in 2009.

When the BJP’s influence grew in the state, Kokate joined the party but lost the polls in 2014. Ahead of the 2019 assembly elections, he returned to the NCP and won from Sinnar again. When Ajit Pawar split the NCP in 2023, he stuck with him. In 2024, he was elected from Sinnar, once again.

When Ajit Pawar chose not to make Chhagan Bhujbal a minister after the Mahayuti government came to power in 2024, Pawar picked Kokate, also from Nashik district, for a ministerial berth. He was given the agriculture portfolio, considered significant in rural politics.

Making the wrong moves

Soon, Kokate built a reputation, not for his work as minister but for a series of controversies – largely of his own making. In February, he likened farmers to “beggars” while defending the government’s Re 1 crop insurance scheme. “Nowadays, even beggars do not accept a single rupee, and yet the government offers crop insurance to farmers for just one rupee,” he had said.

That same month, Kokate and his brother Vijay were sentenced to two years in prison after a Nashik court found them guilty of faking documents to secure two flats under the chief minister’s quota for weaker sections.

In April, while inspecting a farm after unseasonal rains, Kokate accused farmers of deliberately defaulting on crop loans, so that they could benefit from a farm loan waiver, and then spending the money on weddings and engagements.

In May, he kicked up a fresh controversy by describing his job as “osad gao chi patilki” (being chieftain of a deserted village). This was only a day after he insulted farmers a second time. Addressing the media on the demand for a survey to assess crop damage, Kokate said farmers had already removed what was left of their crops. Did they expect the government to survey the mud now, he remarked.

Kokate didn’t stop there. In July, videos of him were circulated online, showing him allegedly playing an online card game on his mobile phone while the state legislature was in session.

Axe begins to fall

By now, his boss and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar had warned him publicly, and stripped him of the agriculture portfolio. Kokate was given charge of the sports, youth welfare and minority affairs departments, considered politically lightweight portfolios.

Kokate had retained his ministerial berth not for who he was but for what he represented. In local politics across Nashik and North Maharashtra, Kokate, a Maratha, mattered to Pawar, particularly after Bhujbal’s firm stand against granting Maratha reservation from the OBC quota alienated Marathas in the region.

But his luck has finally run out.

Now a minister without a portfolio, Kokate is awaiting the Bombay High Court’s verdict on his plea for a stay on the Nashik court’s arrest warrant on Friday – unless he’s arrested before that.