Four members of Amul Dairy join BJP in a setback to Congress

This brings Congress to a minority in the cooperative panel, the last of the thriving milk cooperative bodies where the grand old party still holds sway

In a setback for the Congress, four directors of Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers Union Ltd, better known as Amul Dairy, on Saturday joined BJP in a function held at party headquarters in Gandhinagar in presence of party president C R Paatil. Their departure brings Congress to a minority in the party-supported panel.

The development comes four days before the milk union is set for an election for the post of chairman and vice-chairman. The four directors who joined BJP are Juvansinh Chauhan, Sitaben Parmar, Shardaben Patel and Ghelabhai Zala. They are from Anand and Kheda districts. Last week, another Congress leader Kanti Sodha Parmar, also a board member of the milk union, joined BJP.

These resignations have reduced the number of Congress-supported board members to three from the eight it had after September 2020 elections, when the BJP had only three members. Congress had the support of two other members.

Board members elect their chairman and vice-chairman every three years while an election for board members is held every five years.

Ramsinh Parmar, who joined BJP from Congress in 2017, is the chairman while Congress leader and former MLA of Borsad Rajendrasinh Parmar became the vice-chairman. The chairman was uncontested while Rajendrasinh Parmar won his current post only last year after several twists and turns.

Soon after the election in 2020, the state government nominated three members as government representatives. Rajendrasinh Parmar and other elected members moved the High Court alleging the ruling BJP of creating an "artificial majority" to help its candidate win the post of vice-chairman. The High Court declared the nomination of three persons illegal and quashed it in July 2022. Subsequently, Rajendrasinh won the post.

The development holds importance for the opposition party since this is the last of the thriving milk cooperative bodies where it still holds sway. It is the only milk union, out of 18 in the state, where Congress still has a hold. These 18 unions are part of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets its products under the brand name Amul. The unions are considered significant for political parties due to lakhs of people associated with them. The BJP in the last two decades of uninterrupted rule has wrested control over the rest of the unions.

Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi told DH, "The BJP has taken control of all unions not through popular votes but through tactics of luring and setting up inquiries. There is a whole history of our leaders who were threatened to join the BJP. There are so many examples of Congress leaders against whom inquiries were set up but the moment they joined BJP, inquiries were stopped."