After a series of defeats since the 2012 Assembly elections, at last there is something to cheer for the Congress workers in Gujarat as the Congress inspired panel won the prestigious election of Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union — internationally known as Amul Dairy.
Considered as the last bastion for the Congress in the State’s daily cooperative sector, the Congress captured 10 seats out of 13 and allowed the rival BJP to win only couple of seats. One berth went to the individual candidate. As many as 27 candidates were in the fray. Both Congress and BJP had made panels of 13 candidates each while as independent candidates also fought the election.
The voting was completed on Monday in 11 different polling stations and the result was declared on Wednesday. Despite having less than 1,000 eligible voters, the election of Amul dairy was taken very seriously by both the main political parties. The reason being the capturing of India’s biggest dairy means controlling Rs4,000 crore empire having network across the country.
Interestingly 100 per cent polling was registered for all 13 seats and the Congress candidates garnered 61 per cent of the total 926 votes polled by representatives of district cooperative milk unions in 12 tehsils. They represent village-level dairy cooperative societies with a 30 lakh milk produces as members in hundreds of villages.
Current Amul Dairy chairman and Congress MlA from Thasra, Ramsinh Parmar led the poll campaign successfully and retained his party in control of Amul Dairy. Parmar is again expected to be crowned as the chairman.
The Congress-backed panel called Vikas (Development) while BJP candidates fought the election under the banner of Parivartan (Change) panel. Parmar won the election unopposed while BJP candidate Vipul Patel too won unopposed.
The Amul model of milk cooperative structure is being replicated across the country. It works at three levels. There is a dairy cooperative society at the village level which is affiliated to a milk union at the district level and in the final tier becomes part of a State-level federation.
The first tier collects milk. The next procures and processes milk and milk products at the district union, followed by the last tier that handles the marketing as a State-level body - Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF).