The term of Chairman of GCMMF, a cooperative federation of fifteen dairy cooperatives comes to an end on 25-26th June. R S Sodhi, Managing Director of the famed dairy brand Amul has already written to the collector for starting the process of election.
Parthi Bhatol, the current Chairman had a tumultuous tenure with Ram Sinh Parmar of Congress mounting a continuous pressure on him to quit. The matter had come to a head a couple of years ago when a majority of members of GCMMF Board had gone against Bhatol.
But how he won remains an act of miracle yet. It is said that because of his simplicity Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat backed him and he succeeded in turning the board in his favour. Lots of water has flown through the Ganges meanwhile with his opponents at Banas dairy mounting all kinds of charges against him.
Vipul Chaudhary,the man behind Dudhsagar, was the one who had challenged Bhatol earlier. Since the date of election has not been announced directors of GCCMF are keeping their cards close to their chest.
Vipul Chaudhry is in BJP and could easily get himself catapulted as the candidate for the Chairmanship. Bhatol is non-committal and leaving everything on high command and Ram Sinh Parmar’s political activities on the subject remain unclear so far.
Campaign would pick up momentum once the date of the election is announced. According to unconfirmed sources it could be 17 or 18 July,just before the election of the President of India which is scheduled for 19th July.
GCMMF has 16 voters, 15 of them belong to the dairy cooperatives and one vote belongs to the Registrar of the Gujarat cooperatives. In the last election there were 13 votes but two more cooperative federations have joined since adding to the votes.
Those contesting the election for the Chairmanship of GCMMF would have to keep an eye on four members as they are treated as floating votes. They could switch sides easily. This includes Manu Patel of Surat Dairy,Jetha Patel of Sabarkatha dairy,Shankar Singh Rana of Gandhi Nagar dairy and Baba Parmar of Surendra Nagar dairy.