End of Road for Congress in another Gujarat bastion as BJP takes over Amul

Party insiders say that after the Assembly polls, the party meticulously worked to change that, bringing in five Congress leaders to the BJP. On Tuesday, finally, BJP leader Vipul Patel and Congress turncoat Kanti Parmar Sodha were elected as Chairman and Vice-Chairman, respectively, of the cooperative.

Earlier, the dairy’s chairman since 2002 and former MLA, Ramsinh Parmar, had defected from the Congress to the BJP in 2017, ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls that year. However, the districts of Anand and Kheda being Congress strongholds, the party still had an upper hand in the Amul board. The party continued to occupy the post of Vice-Chairman through Rajendrasinh Parmar, former MLA of Borsad — after the Gujarat HC cleared his appointment last year. Until the BJP’s masterstroke last week.

Within five days, the Congress had not only lost four directors of Amul Dairy to the BJP, but also its hold on the last bastion. Four directors of Amul belonging to the party had joined the BJP in the presence of state president C R Paatil in Gandhinagar on February 11, bringing down the Congress tally to two. Jovansinh Chauhan (Modaj), Sita Chandu Parmar (Tarapur), Sharda Hari Patel (Kapadvanj) and Ghela Mansinh Zala (Kathlal) had joined the BJP, receiving saffron sashes from C R Paatil. The Congress, which had won eight of 11 seats in the September 2020 polls, had also seen former Anand Congress MLA Kanti Sodha Parmar — who is also a director of Amul — join the BJP earlier this year.

On February 13, the BJP held a meeting at the Anand circuit house, where a “mandate” was reportedly given to elect Vipul Patel as Chairman and Sodha Parmar as the Vice-Chairman. A senior party leader said, “An election in a cooperative does not require a party mandate, but the party is following procedure, which is why more than 300 cooperatives that were earlier with the Congress have now come to the BJP, as people are looking for good governance. Therefore, as more leaders from cooperative boards voluntarily join the party, it only becomes a formality for the BJP to elect its Chairperson. We all know how infighting within the ‘majority’ board affected the fortunes of Amul in recent years.”

The party’s choice of the two leaders at the helm is also seen as significant, for Patel is an influential community leader, and is the first Patel to be the Amul Chairman after its founder Tribhuvandas Patel. Parmar, on the other hand, represents the majority OBC community, which also includes many milk farmers. A BJP leader said, “Caste is not really a factor in the dairy, as for years, the posts were held by Ramsinh Parmar and Rajendrasinh Parmar, first from the Congress and later, when Ramsinh moved to the BJP. But the election of a Patel as Chairman after nearly 45 years will definitely make the Patidar community happy, as it has been behind the success of the cooperative as well as the white revolution since the times of Sardar Patel. Currently, the party has four Patidar board members, including Vipul Patel. But he has been handed over the responsibility, because of his capability and everyone knows that he is an efficient cooperative leader.”

Founder Tribhuvandas Patel had voluntarily retired from the post of Chairman of Amul in 1970, after which, he was succeeded by several Congress leaders, until Ramsinh Parmar took over in early 2000. In fact, Ramsinh, 78, was said to have been in the race for the post even after the BJP’s surprise takedown of the Congress last week. Local leaders said the BJP had been looking for an opportunity to take over Amul since the controversial 2020 elections, when Ramsinh aligned with the Congress panel led by Rajendrasinh Parmar to secure his clout and the post of Chairman — getting elected uncontested.

Ramsinh, who had lost his Assembly constituency of Thasra after switching over to the BJP in the 2017 Assembly polls, is said to be disappointed at being sidelined from the top post. A leader said, “He has not expressed his disappointment but he knew it would be coming. The BJP had fielded his son Yogendra from Thasra and he won the seat by defeating the Congress MLA Kanti Parmar. So as per the new party policy, two members of the same family are not considered simultaneously for important posts.”

Vipul Patel, 52, who is currently the President of the BJP unit in Kheda district, is a popular leader of cooperatives, and has his hands full with multiple posts in Anand and Kheda districts.

The Congress is currently left with two out of the nine seats it won in the 2020 polls — Rajendrasinh Parmar and Sanjay Patel. Rajendrasinh also lost the Congress’s so-far-undefeated bastion of Borsad in the recently concluded Assembly polls — a seat previously held by deceased former Chief Minister Madhavsinh Solanki.

With Amul now in the grip of the BJP, the influence of the Congress has further diminished in its bastion of the Anand and Kheda districts — which has 7 lakh milk producers in village cooperatives. Leaders in the Congress, which has lost hold over nearly 15 milk cooperative unions in the recent past, admit it will be an uphill task to recover from the losses. A senior party leader said, “The party had actually lost grip of Amul when Ramsinh Parmar turned over to the BJP in 2017, and then got elected as Chairman with the support of the BJP… The latest rout will definitely dent the forthcoming elections in local bodies and taluka panchayats, as well as the Lok Sabha polls next year. But it will not be easy to wrest power from the BJP, which is using all means possible to capture cooperatives, especially after losing many veteran cooperative leaders in the recent past.”