Gujarat elections: Co-ops play a major role

Co-operatives are part of life of average Gujaratis and hence concerted efforts were put in to enlist their support in the ongoing Gujarat Assembly elections. Though, both BJP and Congress are eager to seek their support, it is the former which seems to have better mobilized the co-op world to its advantage.

A high-level meeting of cooperative leaders of the state was convened in October by the BJP President Amit Shah and the road-map was laid down, according to a cooperator of the state.

Dileepbhai Sanghani and another MP from Rajasthan (who does not want to be named) were made in-charge for achieving the co-operative outreach the party had planned.

Talking to Indian Cooperative in Gandhinagar Sanghani conceded the party has planned meetings with cooperators at all the levels- up to the village panchayat level. Beginning at the district level all the top cooperators were called and targets were given; they had to reach out to each block in their respective districts.

The top leaders, in the next phase held meetings with cooperators active at block level. Task of mobilizing at least 10 thousand voters in each constituency through the co-operative route was conceived.

At the macro level, the Prime Minister never failed to have cooperative leaders by his side on the dais during his hectic campaigning in the state.

If in the Amreli meeting he had Dileepbhai Sanghani on his side, it was Jayantibhai Savjibhai Dhol, chairman of the Gondal Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) in Modi’s Rajkot rally.

According to NCUI data released recently Gujarat has about 76,000 cooperative societies. These are active in many sectors such as milk and livestock, farming, fisheries, consumer, irrigation, co-operative banks and APMCs.

GCCMF which is a confederation of several milk unions is dominated by the BJP. The lone Congressman Ram Sinh Parmar of Amul dairy has also switched sides to the party boosting its electoral chances. Of the 18 district cooperative banks in the state, the BJP controls 16. It has control over more than 80% of 91 APMCs of Gujarat, which deal directly with farmers, reports HT.

Sanghani who is himself in the fray sounds optimistic about BJP winning with a comfortable majority. “You would see the truth of my statement as December 18 is not far off”, he said before hanging down the phone.