Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday denied allegations that the BJP was attempting to take control of Kolhapur’s Gokul milk union by appointing five government nominees, saying the state government had no interest in taking over a district-level cooperative institution. He advised Congress leader Satej Patil and Mahayuti leaders Hasan Mushrif and Vinay Kore to sit together and resolve the issue to avoid government nominations.
In the Gokul elections, Patil’s panel won 13 seats against the Mahayuti’s 12. However, a deadlock over the quorum prevented the election of the chairman. Following court directions, the chairman’s election is scheduled for November 10.
The controversy erupted after the Maharashtra Cabinet decided to amend the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act, 1960, to facilitate the appointment of five nominated members to Gokul, four of whom would have voting rights. Subsequently, the state Cooperative Department issued an ordinance on Friday to give effect to the amendment.
The move is expected to give the Mahayuti an advantage in the election of the cooperative’s chairman, despite its panel winning only 12 seats against the 13 secured by the group led by Congress leader Patil.
Patil, who is also the Congress Legislature Party group leader in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, accused the BJP-led Mahayuti government of insulting the mandate of the people of Kolhapur by attempting to take control of Gokul Dairy. He announced a protest march against the government’s ordinance on November 9.
The political row over Gokul Dairy escalated after senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi accused the BJP of stealing the votes of milk producers and tampering with the people’s mandate.
Under Gokul’s rules, a minimum of 14 directors is required to constitute a quorum. However, at the meeting convened on October 29 to elect the new chairman, the 12 Mahayuti-backed directors remained absent. With only 13 directors in attendance, the meeting could not proceed.
Subsequently, the 13 directors belonging to Patil’s panel held a separate meeting and declared Shashikant Patil Chuyekar elected as chairman. However, the dairy administration refused to recognise the election.
On November 2, the Kolhapur bench of the Bombay High Court directed Gokul Dairy to convene a fresh meeting on November 10, issuing notices to all 25 elected directors.
Responding to criticism of the ordinance, Fadnavis said neither the Congress-led group nor the Mahayuti had the numbers required to meet the quorum for a meeting following the Gokul Dairy elections.
“If there is no quorum, how can the chairman be elected? The court has already directed that a meeting be held on November 10. The court did not say that if the quorum is not met on November 10, the chairman’s election should be conducted without a quorum. If the quorum is not fulfilled, the election of the chairman cannot take place.
“If we look at Gokul’s rules and by-laws, there have been three instances in the past when elections could not be held. In such circumstances, the Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies gets all the powers, leaving the elected representatives with no authority. Therefore, to ensure that the quorum is met, we have nominated certain members with voting rights. In this backdrop, the law has been brought,” he said.
Fadnavis said the situation had raised a legal question, as neither of the two groups had the numbers required to meet the quorum. He said the decision to nominate members had been taken specifically to ensure that the quorum was fulfilled.
“Therefore, I do not think the state government has any intention of taking over Gokul. The Gokul dairy federation has around 5,000 voters and is an institution confined to a single district. There is no reason to believe that the state government is so keen to take control of just one institution. I would go a step further and say that even today, I believe that if the two groups sit together and reach a consensus, there would be no need for these people (the nominated members),” the Chief Minister said.
He said the Gokul election would have no bearing on state politics and accused the Congress of giving a national political colour to an issue concerning a single cooperative institution.
Responding to a query about Rahul Gandhi’s post on the issue, Fadnavis, who is also a senior BJP leader, said the Congress was attempting to turn an election to a cooperative institution into a national issue.
“This reflects that the Congress wants to make this a national issue, but we do not want to politicise the issue,” he said.
Responding to speculation that the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena was unhappy with the nominations, the Chief Minister said the decision had been taken by the state Cabinet after consultations with local leaders of the BJP, Shiv Sena, NCP and Jan Surajya Party, as well as the Advocate General and the Law and Judiciary Department.
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