By: Express News ServiceSurat | September 16, 2025 04:52 AM IST 4 min readThe last day for filing nomination forms was August 30, while the last day for withdrawing a candidature form was September 9The Dudhdhara Dairy (The Bharuch District Cooperative Milk Producer Ltd) election is drawing political attention, with the BJP suspending nine active members for filing nominations against party candidates.The SUMUL Dairy election in Surat will be announced in the coming days, and an alleged cold war exists between its present Chairman, Mansinh Patel, and the Vice Chairman, Raju Pathak. Political sources said that Mansinh Patel is a strong loyalist of the state BJP president C R Paatil.Earlier, in IFFCO ( Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited) election, the former state minister and BJP MLA Jayesh Radadiya contested against party candidates and got elected. The BJP MLA from Vagra in the Bharuch assembly seat and chairman of the Bharuch District Cooperative Bank, Arunsinh Rana, has fielded his loyalists against the BJP candidates in the Dudhdhara Dairy election.The election of Bharuch Dudhdhara dairy will be held on Friday (September 19). The last day for filing nomination forms was August 30, while the last day for withdrawing a candidature form was September 9. The election will be for 15 seats, out of which one candidate has withdrawn his candidature and one, Prakash Desai, has been elected unanimously from Narmada.There are 296 voters spread across the milk cooperative societies in Bharuch and Narmada districts. The annual turnover of the dairy is around Rs 800 crores.BJP leader Ghanshyam Patel of Bharuch has been holding the chairman post of the dairy for the last 17 years. This year again, he also filed his candidature with 14 loyalists for the upcoming elections. Apart from this, for the first time, senior BJP leader and Vagra BJP MLA Arunsinh Rana had fielded his loyalists in the dairy elections. Rana is not contesting the election, but he has backed a team of 9 candidates under ‘Vikas Sahkar Panel’, which analysts say is also supported by the BJP MP of Bharuch, Mansukh Patel.The BJP state leadership had given a mandate to the candidates of Ghanshyam Patel’s panel to contest the dairy election. On Sunday, the State BJP leadership suspended nine active BJP leaders from Bharuch and Narmada for contesting against party candidates. The suspended leaders who are in the poll fray of Dudhdhara dairy election to be held on Friday are former President of Bharuch District Panchayat Shantaben Patel, Hemantsinh Raj, Jagdish Patel, Jignesh Patel, Natvar Parmar, Vinod Patel, all from Bharuch, and Sunil Patel, Dinesh Bariya and Soma Vasava, all from Narmada district. Sources said that among the suspended BJP leaders and candidates, Hemantsinh Raj, Jignesh Patel, Vinod Patel, and Jagdish patel’s wife are board members of the current milk body of Dudhdhara dairy.Story continues below this adBharuch district president of the BJP Prakash Modi told The Indian Express, “We have suspended nine BJP leaders who had gone against the party line and filed their nominations against the party candidates in the upcoming Dudhdhara dairy election. This decision has been taken by the party state leadership.”One of the suspended members, Sunil Patel, 45, of Naramda district, said, “I had been with the party for the last 25 years, similarly the other suspended leaders are associated with the party for past 15 to 20 years, and they had fought taluka panchayat and district panchayat elections. I have been regularly fighting against Ghanshyam Patel in the Bharuch district sugar mill elections.”“We (nine candidates) have filled our nomination forms before the last date of filing the nomination forms (August 30). The party issued mandates with the names of candidates on August 30. We made representations to the district BJP president and also wrote a letter to the State BJP president, C R Paatil, in this connection. The party’s higher-ups have not instructed us to withdraw our nominations, so we continued. Now, the party has suspended us. We have worked hard for the party in Bharuch and Narmada, and we are shocked to see such an action from party leadership.”Despite repeated attempts, BJP MLA of Vagra in Bharuch A Runsinh Rana was unavailable on phone.Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:Bharuch districtGujarat BJP