Gujarat HC orders to proceed with polls for Amul Dairy chairman, vice-chairman posts, bars from announcing results

The Gujarat High Court on Thursday ordered the state government to proceed with the election for the post of chairman and vice-chairman of Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers Union Ltd, popularly known as Amul Dairy, scheduled to be held on Friday but prohibited declaration of its result.

The court also ordered that along with result, votes cast by the contentious appointment of three government nominees, reportedly associated with BJP, be produced in the court in a sealed cover in the next hearing on November 24.

The orders came on a petition moved by three Congress leaders including two sitting MLAs challenging the appointment of three nominees as government representative in the managing committee of the union. The petitioners have alleged that at the instance of BJP these appointments were made in order to create "artificial majority" to favour members belonging to the ruling party.

In August, the polls for 13 seats of managing directors were held, out of which 9 seats went to a panel belonging current chairman Ramsinh Parmar and vice-chairman Rejendrasinh Parmar. Ramsinh is an ex-Congress MLA who joined BJP in 2017 while Rajendrasinh is a Congress MLA from Borsad. The BJP supporters won only 4 seats. The petitioners have alleged to the appointment of three members as government representative is only to create a majority.

Justice Biren Vaishnav after hearing the case issued notice to the state government and directed to proceed with the polls to be held on Friday but barred from declaring the result. The order states, "It is clarified that votes cast by the three directors appointed, pursuant to the order dated 20.10.2020 shall be kept in a separate sealed cover.

The results of the Election of the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman of the petitioner society shall not be declared till the returnable date and shall be subject to further orders that may be passed on that date. The respondents shall place the sealed cover of the process of the election before this Court with an affidavit." The court will hear the matter on Saturday.

Amul dairy is the only union where Congress still has some hold out of a total of 18 such unions in the state which are under the umbrella of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF). The rest of the dairy unions are directly or indirectly controlled by the BJP members. The appointment of three representatives has seen an attempt to take control of Amul Dairy as well.

On October 14, Registrar of Co-operative Societies had issued show-cause notices to all the elected members of the dairy as to why three persons identified as Bharat Patel, Prabhat Zala and Dinesh Patel not be appointed as government representatives in the managing committee of the union.

The registrar also issued an "agenda notice to hold and convene a meeting for the chairman and vice-chairman to be held on October 23." The shocked elected members including two Congress MLAs- Rajendrasinh, Kanti Sodha Parmar (Anand), moved Gujarat high court against appointment of government representatives.

The petition stated that Rajesh Pathak, one of the elected members and associated with BJP, is aspiring for the post of chairman or vice-chairman and has only three to four elected members in his support. The petition alleges that the registrar has sought "to exercise the powers colourably and with malafide intention to create an artificial majority in favour of the members belonging to the political party in power in the state."