In a setback to the Congress, four directors of Amul Dairy—formerly Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union—belonging to the party joined the BJP in presence of state president C R Paatil in Gandhinagar on Saturday, bringing down the party tally to three.

The four Amul directors are from Anand and Kheda districts— Gautam Chauhan (Mehmedabad), Sita Chandu Parmar (Tarapur), Sharda Hari Patel (Kapadvanj) and Ghela Mansinh Zala (Kathlal).

The Congress, which won eight of the 11 seats in the September 2020 polls, has now been reduced to three seats as former Anand MLA Kanti Sodha Parmar, also an Amul director, had already quit the party and joined the BJP.

At the event in Gandhinagar, BJP state general secretary Pradipsinh Vaghela told reporters, “The directors have joined the BJP to be able to work for the cattle owners in the districts of Anand and Kheda as well as parts of Mahisagar… They have joined the BJP with aspirations as they have earlier been part of the Congress, which had controlled cooperatives for many years and misused the funds and power of the cooperatives. However, in the past two years, the BJP has won more than 300 cooperative elections including banks, dairies, most of the APMCs, and traders’ associations. The party is now running these cooperatives with good governance and the stakeholders, especially cattle owners, are benefiting. Therefore, the directors are joining the BJP slowly.”

Vaghela said that while most directors had already joined the BJP, the others may soon follow suit. “Some who are remaining may also change their mind in due course. The decision is made by the individual directors voluntarily,” he added.

Source : Indian Express Feb 11th 2023