Vadodara, February 14, 2023: : All eyes in Gujarat’s dairy co-operative sector are set on the elections of the two top posts of Amul Dairy scheduled on Tuesday.
The polls for the post of chairman and vice-chairman are being held after a gap of almost two and a half years. Currently, Ramsinh Parmar, the veteran cooperative leader, who joined the saffron fold in 2017, is serving as chairman of Amul Dairy while the post of vice-chairman is held by former Congress MLA from Borsad Rajendrasinh Parmar.
Ahead of the elections, dramatic political developments have taken place. After the last elections in 2020 for the 13 elected seats of the board of directors, Congress won with the majority by winning eight out of 11 seats for which polls were held. Ramsinh Parmar and Ranjit Patel, representing lifetime members, were elected uncontested. In October 2020, when the elections for the chairman and vice-chairman were held, Ramsinh was elected uncontested but the post of vice-chairman had seen a direct contest between Rajendrasinh and BJP-backed Rajesh Pathak according to the reports published in timesofindia.indiatimes.com.
The results of the vice-chairman’s post were kept in abeyance due to long drawn legal battle and it was only in September last year that Rajendrasinh was declared as vice-chairman as he got nine votes in his favour against six in favour of Pathak.
But things have changed for Congress since then. Last month, Kanti Sodha Parmar, former Congress MLA from Anand, who is also a board member, switched over to BJP. Earlier, this month, four other Congress-backed directors joined the BJP. After these political developments, BJP managed to get a majority in the board of Amul Dairy which was the only milk union in Gujarat where the Congress had its strong presence.
While much of the outcome of the polls will depend on the choice of BJP leadership, in eventuality of polls, a total of 15 board members are eligible to exercise their voting right.
Apart from the 13 elected representatives, the board also has a representative of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation and the district registrar.
