Amidst the brouhaha over tariff wars and GST 2.0, not too many noticed the fall of possibly the last political bastion of the Congress party in Gujarat. Last year, during my election tour across the country, I stopped at Anand, the de facto headquarters of Brand Amul (producer of milk and milk products, and known for the iconic Amul girl’s advertisements). Throughout the nation, the talk was about the forthcoming national elections, and whether the ruling BJP could miraculously win more than 400 seats in Lok Sabha.
However, the buzz at Amul’s Anand was different. People animatedly talked about dairy cooperatives, the lifeline and money-life of the area. At Kaira District Milk Producers’ Union, possibly the largest dairy cooperative in the state, and popularly known as Amul Dairy, four Congressmen (known as directors) had shifted their allegiance to the BJP in 2023. Still, the Congress maintained its power base at Amul, with the BJP having gained partial control.
The power shift did leave a mark, though. It was a huge blow to the Congress, as Kaira (Amul) is the most important dairy body in Gujarat. Over the previous years, the BJP had wrested the other dairies from the Congress. This is why during my trip I heard a few die-hard and angry supporters of the latter thinking about how to teach a lesson to the turncoats in the next elections.
Alas, it was not to be. This month, when the elections were held at the Kaira Dairy, one of the 18 major cooperatives that constitute the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which controls the $10 billion Amul brand and Amul operations, BJP won 11 of the 13 seats. Congress had to settle for two. The BJP secured four seats without a contest, as opposition candidates withdrew their nominations. The process to file the nominations, according to local media reports, was marred by violence, and bribery allegations.
This was the last of the 18 major cooperatives that the Congress had earlier controlled. It is gone. Finally, the new Congress-BJP dairy politics, which accelerated two decades ago, seems to be over. Jaswant Rawal, a veteran journalist from Anand who has covered the cooperatives for a quarter of a century, is reflective. “The BJP’s mission to control the resource-rich cooperative sector in the state began in the early 2000s, when Narendra Modi became the chief minister.
The chief strategist was Amit Shah. Now, the latter, who holds the home and cooperative portfolios at the Centre, has achieved the objective that was planned 25 years ago,” he explains. The GCMMF is the source of livelihood to 3.5 million dairy farmers. Apart from this, the cooperative of cooperatives is not about money and business, and providing alternative incomes to the farmers. It is about political patronage. This is true for most cooperatives in other sectors across the country, be it sugar, credit and banking, urban cooperatives, fertilisers, and housing.
Here is the reason for the politicisation, if you have not guessed it. The 3.5 million dairy farmers associated with the GCMMF can translate into a minimum 10-15 million votes, if we count 3-4 voting members per family. Rawal recollects how the Congress systematically lost access to the resources and patronage in the Gujarat’s dairy sector since the 2002 assembly elections, which coupled with the terminal decline in the electoral fortunes of the party.
The last time the party won the assembly elections was in 1985. According to Rawal, during the heydays of leaders such as Chimanbhai Patel, Madhav Singh Solanki, and Amar Chaudhry, the Congress formed an informal KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, and Muslim) caste-religion-community alliance. The BJP remained a marginal player.
But then the powerful Patidar (Patel) community, which is akin to the Yadav clan in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, gravitated towards the BJP. The Congress alliance was shattered and scattered. Its political supremacy and monopoly were broken in 1990. Despite being in the opposition, the Congress retained command over the vote banks related to Other Backward Classes, Adivasis, and Muslims. Smart as it was, explains Rawal, the BJP used micro-strategies like subsidised loans to woo the farmers and dairy owners, who belonged to the backward classes, and played the Hindutva card to consolidate votes, more so after Modi became the prime minister in 2014.
By the 2020s, apart from ruling the state for more than two decades, the BJP captured 17 out of the 18 dairy cooperatives that constitute the GCMMF and Amul. Now, this month, even the Kaira union is firmly in the BJP’s hands. Rawal reckons that the Congress will find it extremely difficult to make a political comeback in the state, not just because of dairy political losses, but since it has lost access to resources, and ability to grant local patronage.
When Shah was given charge of a newly-created cooperative ministry at the Centre, analysts correctly interpreted this as a grand political economy strategy. The aim was to systematically go after the old Congress network and ecosystem of cooperatives, resources, and patronage. The mission is accomplished in Gujarat. However, anyone familiar with Shah and his political-electoral strategies knows this is just the beginning for the wily politician.
His next target is likely to be the cooperatives in Maharashtra, where the sector is larger, and more cash-rich than in Gujarat. Large and powerful milk and sugar cooperatives, apart from banks and credit ones, in Maharashtra are dominated by Congress or NCP. These parties control tens of thousands of crores in assets and resources.
Way back in 2022, according to media reports Shah, as central cooperative minister, sounded the bugle to root out injustices, corruption, and mismanagement in Maharashtra cooperatives. The obvious targets were the political rivals. Several government reports and court judgments hint at the links between cooperatives and votes. For example, the leaders of the local sugar cooperatives would refuse to buy the farmers’ produce if they, and their families, did not vote for the former, or their candidates. Or else, the farmers would not get credit from the banking cooperatives.
During the 2024 elections, several heads of cooperatives, and powerful leaders within the sector, rubbed shoulders with Shah during the rallies. This is indicative of the same trend that one witnessed in Gujarat. Politicians and their supporters within the sector are slowly leaving their old alliances, and signing up with the BJP. It may be a matter of time before Shah captures the cooperatives in Maharashtra, which will give the BJP an edge. But it will not be an easy task. Even Amul resisted for decades.