Veteran cooperative leader Ramsinh Parmar was unanimously elected as the Chairman of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF) on Monday, replacing incumbent Jethabhai Patel.
Panchmahal Dairy Chairman Jethabhai Bharwad was made Vice-Chairman of the ₹38,000-crore federation, which markets milk and food products under the brand Amul.
The election for the chairman and vice-chairman posts for the 18-member GCMMF Board were held on Monday morning under the monitoring of Deputy Collector Anand and in presence of senior BJP leader and Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama.
“The chairmen of all 18 member dairy unions unanimously elected Ramsinhbhai Parmar and Jethabhai Bharwad as chairman and vice-chairman respectively. Each of the 18 dairy chairmen are capable of taking the charge but the party and the members have unanimously decided to make Ramsinhbhai as GCMMF chairman,” said Chudasama after the election result.
The 18-member federation has all chairman supported by the ruling BJP. Parmar, who was the lone Congress face in the federation, had switched the sides before Gujarat elections and joined BJP in August. The chairman of Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union, also known as Amul Dairy, Parmar enjoys strong support from the milk producers and also from the cooperative sector. It has been an effort by the BJP to make the elections through a consensus and not through voting. The elections to the top two posts are held once in two and a half years.
Chudasama further added that a meeting with all the 18 dairy members was held recently in Gandhinagar, where they had left the final decision of electing a chairman and vice-chairman to the party. "In the meeting all 18 member chairmen were present along with Revenue Minister Kaushik Patel. We wanted to have the elections unanimous," he added.
Earlier Banas Dairy chairman, Shankar Chaudhary's name had surfaced for the post. But announcing the results, Chudasama stated that Chaudhary had proposed the name of Parmar for the Chairman's post and the outgoing chairman Jethabhai Patel had proposed Bharwad's name for the post of vice-chairman. "Shankarbhai is a senior leader in the Party and that he would be given a suitable role in the Party itself," Chudasama stated.
GCMMF is India’s largest food products marketing organization having an annual sales turnover of over Rs 38,000 crore.
The federation has over 3.6 million milk producers across 18500 villages of Gujarat through 18 district cooperative milk producers unions.