The election results for the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of Surat based Sumul Dairy got embroiled in a court case, even though the voting did take place as scheduled on Friday last week. The counting of votes is expected to take place now after the court hears the matter on 21st September.
The controversy erupted on the issue of the appointment of two govt nominees to the Sumul Board. Congress Directors numbering 4 have gone to court against the appointment of two representatives on the board of dairy by the government of Gujarat.
Interestingly, the two Panels fought elections based on co-operative affiliations and not on political lines, with each Panel having representatives from both Congress and BJP.
But the four Congress loyalists joined hands after the election, despite belonging to different Panels. Now it is they who have knocked the doors of the court.
The ground situation, however is not going to be altered as BJP Director Mansinh Patel and Rajesh Pathak are said to have overwhelming support of the newly elected Board. They are set to become the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the dairy respectively, say sources.
Sumul is one of the milk unions of GCMMF that sells its products under the brand name of Amul. It is said for the first time the government has appointed two representatives on the board of Sumul Dairy which is embroiled in controversy.
There are only four elected directors who belong to congress out of 16. The total votes for the post of Chairman and Vice-Chairman were 19 which consisted of sixteen elected directors, two government representatives and district registrar.
Both Patel and Pathak got 15-15 votes each, sources said, which means they have the support of the Board. The voting process was held under the supervision of Choryasi Prant SDM, Surat, Gujarat.
It is to be noted that the BJP top leadership in Gujarat failed to have an unopposed election. But after the results and just before the election of Chairman and Vice-Chairman, a meeting of BJP directors was called. The mandate was issued in the name of Mansinh Patel for the top job and Rajesh Pathak for the Vice-Chairman.
Both BJP Directors Mansinhbhai Patel and Rajesh Pathak have filed the nominations for the post of Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively whereas Congress Director Sunil Gamit and Bharat Patel filed the nomination for the post of Chairman and Vice-Chairman.
Readers would recall that the two panels led by Raju Pathak and Mansinhbhai Patel were in the race and interestingly both the panels won 8-8 seats each which also delayed the elections of Chairman and Vice-Chairman. It bears recall that on an average, 783 voters had cast their votes and the voting percent was 98 percent.
The Sumul Dairy board consists of 16 directors. There are nine and seven Talukas in Surat and Tapi District respectively and only one director is elected from each Taluka.