Mumbai: Ahead of local body elections across Maharashtra, a new political battle is brewing over milk, with Kolhapur as its epicentre.
The tug-of-war is over gaining control of Gokul Milk, formally known as Kolhapur District Cooperative Milk Producers Union, which is considered to be Maharashtra’s biggest dairy cooperative that supplies milk in large quantities in cities like Mumbai and Pune.
Leaders of the ruling Mahayuti alliance are keen on ensuring that the chairman of Gokul is a Mahayuti nominee, given that elections to panchayat samitis, zilla parishads, and urban local bodies are scheduled to be held this year. The Mahayuti comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The cooperative is currently governed by a panel led by Congress’s Satej Patil and NCP (Ajit Pawar) leader Hasan Mushrif, who is a minister in the Mahayuti government, but also holds a power centre in Kolhapur in his own right. Patil is a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council.
The ruling alliance’s plans threaten the political clout of the two stalwarts. Moreover, the Mahayuti’s interest in having its own chairman at Gokul has thrown a wrench in the arrangement that Mushrif had with Patil, when a panel led by the two leaders won the cooperative elections in 2021.
According to the arrangement, the chairman of the cooperative is supposed to change every two years. But the current chairman Arun Dongale, who is due to resign, has refused to do so, citing an alleged direct request by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Shinde.
The Gokul cooperative handles over Rs 60 crore litres of milk every year. In 2023-24, it posted an annual turnover of Rs 3,640.09 crore. It also has several products under the Gokul brand, such as lassi, shrikhand, ghee, butter and paneer, which are popular across the state. Control over the cooperative gives political heft across Kolhapur district.
Vasant Bhosale, a Kolhapur-based political commentator, told ThePrint, “The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) doesn’t want to lose control over the institution, and the Mahayuti wants to get control over it as it is economically very powerful. It has a turnover of more than Rs 4,000 crore now, and every village in the Kolhapur district has at least two-three milk producing groups in the Gokul network. All of this helps mobilise support on the ground for local elections.”
Also Read: Why Maharashtra wants focus on urban population as metric for fund devolution under Finance Commission
The political battle at Gokul
Mushrif and Patil had collaborated for the 2021 elections for Gokul dairy cooperative, and their arrangement to change the chairman every two years, has by and large been the norm thus far.
Both leaders were part of the MVA back in 2021. The alliance then comprised the Congress, the undivided Shiv Sena and undivided NCP. Subsequently, both Shiv Sena and NCP split, and Mushrif went on to side with the Ajit Pawar-led faction, part of the Mahayuti.
Vishwas Patil, the first chairman of Mushrif and Patil’s panel, resigned in 2023 to make way for the second nominee, Arun Dongale, who was supposed to resign this month to make way for a new chairman.
However, on Thursday, Dongale told media persons that Fadnavis and Shinde had called him for a meeting and asked him not to step down. “The district leaders had asked me to step down, but the CM and Deputy CM are of the opinion that the chairman of Gokul should be a Mahayuti nominee. It’s not so much about whether I stay on as chairman, it is about who the next chairman will be if I resign,” he said.
A senior BJP leader from Kolhapur, who did not wish to be named, said that if the chairman changes now, Congress’s Patil will ensure that he appoints his nominee, who will not be a Mahayuti loyalist. “With regards to Mushrif, he has his own political capital in the district to protect, so he wants Dongale to tender his resignation as was decided and ordered by him,” the leader added.
Mushrif told reporters Friday that cooperatives function differently in Maharashtra and that there shouldn’t be any “politics or unethical competition” in the functioning of these bodies.
“Four years ago, when our panel won the election against the incumbent board, it was decided that Vishwasrao Patil will be the chairman for two years, Dongale will be the chairman for two years, and for the fifth year, all leaders will sit together and decide who the chairman should be. Patil tendered his resignation when he had to, but Dongale refused at the last minute. I will still request him, as decided, to put in his resignation,” said Mushrif, who holds the medical education portfolio in the state cabinet.
He added that there would be no differences with the CM or Deputy CM.
“I am a part of Mahayuti, the CM could have told me what he wants. We are in Mumbai three days a week. We will tell them who we are planning to appoint as chairman…I am clearly saying that in cooperatives, like Gokul, which is the number one in the state, there should be no politics. And we still have time to strengthen parties ahead of local body elections. We will focus on getting more mayors, zilla parishads, municipal councils,” he said.
Gokul’s political history
Dhananjay Mahadik, Rajya Sabha MP and BJP leader from Kolhapur, told ThePrint that Gokul’s management has never been on party lines, and that for 30 years, the cooperative union was managed by supporters of BJP’s Mahadev Mahadik and Congress’s P.N. Patil.
“Before this, rather than looking at parties and groups, Mahadik saheb, P.N. Patil saheb came together to provide good governance. After the MVA government came, leaders here took the help of then CM (Uddhav Thackeray), and formed their own panel. That’s why the cooperative has now got this form (political form). So now, it is natural that everyone will want the next chairman to be from Mahayuti,” the MP said.
Satej Patil, however, denied the allegation that he and Mushrif brought in party politics in the Gokul cooperative.
“There is no party politics in cooperatives. Typically, the CM and Deputy CM don’t intervene in the happenings in a district, and I am positive they have not done so. It is possible that Dongale didn’t want to step down, and met the CM of his own accord and said that he doesn’t want to step down. If someone says this, the leader in front of him will not say—no, you should step down,” he said.
The next election to the cooperative is scheduled to be held early next year.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
Also Read: After 100-day governance programme, Fadnavis’ new challenge for civil servants—a 150-day programme
