Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], November 5 (ANI): Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday took a dig at the Leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, over his remarks about the election to the board of directors of the Kolhapur District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union, popularly known as Gokul Dairy, saying that the matter involved only 4,500 voters and questioning why the Congress leader was raising it from Delhi.
Reacting to Rahul Gandhi’s post, Fadnavis said that no side had secured a majority in Gokul, with one group winning 13 seats and the other 12, leading to repeated cancellations of meetings due to a lack of quorum.
“What a situation Rahul Gandhi has come to! There are merely 4,500 voters in Gokul, and for that, Rahul Gandhi has to sit in Delhi and tweet. Nobody had secured a majority in Gokul. One side had won 13 seats and the other 12 seats,” Fadnavis said.
Explaining the circumstances behind the government’s decision, the Maharashtra Chief Minister said that the required quorum for the meeting was not met, forcing its cancellation twice.
“Therefore, the quorum required for the meeting was not being met. The meeting had to be cancelled twice due to a lack of quorum. If the meeting had been cancelled for the third time due to a lack of quorum, the election itself would have been cancelled. That is why the government took the decision,” he said.
Addressing questions over the legal validity of the decision, Fadnavis said that the government had taken the step after obtaining the Advocate General’s opinion.
“Some people say this decision will not stand in court, while others say it will. The decision was taken only after obtaining the opinion of the Advocate General,” he said.
He further questioned Rahul Gandhi’s intervention in the matter, maintaining that it was not a national issue.
“But this is not a national issue. Rahul Gandhi is getting involved even in this matter,” Fadnavis added.
Earlier in the day, Gandhi accused the BJP of attempting to overturn the electoral mandate in the Gokul Milk Cooperative elections in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur, alleging that the rules were changed after the Congress-led panel defeated the BJP-backed Mahayuti alliance.
In a post on X, Rahul Gandhi alleged that the BJP changed the rules after the election to secure a majority on the board of directors, calling it “theft of the milk producers’ votes”.
“In Gokul, milk producers have defeated the BJP. So the BJP changed the rules after the election – stuff in 4 directors, turn 12 into 16, steal the majority. This is theft of the milk producers’ votes – adulteration in the mandate. The BJP has become so desperate that it’s going to any lengths everywhere to save power. Those who steal the milk producers’ votes, remember – farmers don’t forget,” Rahul Gandhi said.
The story began on October 19, 2026, when elections were held for the 25 director posts of the Gokul Milk Union, drawing an astonishing voter turnout of nearly 99.74% to 99.96%. When the votes were counted, the Congress-backed Rajarshi Shahu Shetkari Samavichari Aghadi, led by Congress MLC Satej Patil, emerged victorious by securing 13 seats to claim a simple majority. The rival panel backed by the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti coalition secured the remaining 12 seats.
However, the democratic mandate quickly hit a stalemate. Subsequent attempts to elect a chairman descended into a deadlock as all 12 Mahayuti-backed directors repeatedly boycotted the meetings, deliberately depriving the process of the 14-director quorum required to hold the vote.
Seeking a resolution, Satej Patil’s panel approached the Bombay High Court. Intervening in the matter, the High Court issued notices to all 25 elected directors and ordered a fresh chairman election to be held on November 10, 2026.
Yet, just days before the scheduled judicial deadline, the state executive made a decisive move. On November 4, 2026, the Maharashtra cabinet approved a controversial ordinance enabling the state to appoint five government-nominated members—four of whom carry full voting rights—to the managing committees of any cooperative bodies with annual turnovers exceeding ₹500 crore.
The sudden rule change fundamentally altered the arithmetic on the board, potentially swinging the power balance from a 13–12 Congress majority to a 16–13 majority in favour of the Mahayuti coalition.
The cabinet’s move sparked immediate outrage across national and state opposition ranks. Prominent opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, Pawan Khera, and Rohit Pawar, fiercely condemned the decision, describing the ordinance as a blatant post-election “theft” of the voters’ mandate and an existential attack on the autonomy of the cooperative sector.
In response, the Congress party pledged to challenge the ordinance directly in the Supreme Court. On the ground in Kolhapur, the fallout was immediate. Denouncing November 4 as a “black day” for Maharashtra’s cooperative movements, Satej Patil organised a massive protest march from Dasara Chowk to the District Collectorate ahead of the November 10 election, while leaders from the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) called for a local gherao at the Gokul Dairy headquarters. (ANI)
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