The Hindu : National : Mehsana dairy row takes political turn

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Sunday, Jan 28, 2007
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National

National

Mehsana dairy row takes political turn

Special Correspondent

Congress to support dairy's suspended chief in fight against Modi Government

AHMEDABAD : The suspension of the chairman of the Mehsana co-operative milk dairy, the second largest in Gujarat after AMUL, has taken a political turn with the Gujarat Congress deciding to back Vipul Chaudhary in his fight against the Narendra Modi Government for the alleged "politically-motivated action."

Vendetta alleged

Flanked by the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, Arjun Modhvadia, the former deputy Chief minister and a co-operative leader, Narhari Amin, and the All India Congress Committee joint secretary, Naresh Raval, Mr. Chaudhary told mediapersons here on Saturday that his suspension for alleged violation of the cooperative act in recruitment of staff was an "act of political vendetta" by the Bharatiya Janata Party Government in the State.

Mr. Chaudhary was served the suspension order late on Friday night — despite being the Republic Day holiday — by the registrar of State co-operatives for recruiting some 400 staff members, mainly for its affiliated Dudhmansagar dairy at Manesar in Haryana during the last couple of years. Mr. Chaudhary claimed that no irregularities were committed in recruiting the staff and all the appointments were made as per the set norms after duly taking written examinations and oral interviews of over 28,000 applicants for the 400 odd posts.

Charge

Mr. Raval even alleged that the root cause of Mr. Chaudhary's suspension was his refusal to "print" the photograph of the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, along with the logo of "vibrant Gujarat" on each milk pouch. Mr. Chaudhary admitted that the Cooperative Minister, Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, had recently approached the Mehsana dairy for printing Mr. Modi's picture and the logo. While the dairy agreed to print the "vibrant Gujarat" logo in the "larger interest of the State," it disagreed to give political mileage to Mr. Modi.

Mr. Narhari Amin claimed that the BJP Government had been trying to interfere in the functioning of the cooperative bodies, a majority of which were still in the control of the Congress, and had been "intimidating" the cooperative members and directors with "false complaints and police action. He alleged that the Cooperative Department was virtually being run from the office of the Minister of State for Home, Amit Shah, who had been "policing" the cooperative bodies trying to find fault with the Congress leaders controlling the cooperatives.

Mr. Chaudhary claimed that he had already applied to the Central Cooperative Registrar for affiliation of the Mehsana milk Cooperative as a multi-State cooperative body to enable it to run the Dudhmansagar dairy in Haryana and start other units elsewhere in the country. A petition to this effect was also pending before the Gujarat High court. Both the Central Registrar and the High Court had sought the State Cooperative Registrar's opinion on the issue but instead of taking a decision on giving it the status of multi-state co-operative, it was taking "vindictive action."

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