Bharat Patankar is a leading activist of the left wing of Shramik Mukti Dal and of the peasant movement in Maharashtra. Bharat Patankar is an activist who has worked for almost 40 years in movements of workers, farmers, dam evictees, agricultural labourers, the drought eradication movement, alternative cultural movement, women's liberation movement, anti-SEZ and coal-based power plant movement based on alternative energy proposals, rights of farmers on windmills, and radical anti-caste movements. He was married to writer and activist, Gail Omvedt until her death in 2021.

Shramik Mukti Dal is a socio-political organization in Maharashtra, India. It is an organization working in eleven districts of Maharashtra, organizing farmers and toilers on issues of drought, dam and project eviction, and caste oppression. The Shramik Mukti Dal (SMD) follows an ideology not simply based on Marxism but on Marx-Phule-Ambedkarism.