‘Cong won’t allow BJP to raise One Nation, One Milk slogan’

The Congress won’t allow a time to come when the BJP can raise the slogan of “One Nation, One Milk”, the opposition party said on Wednesday while accusing the Centre of seeking “enforced cooperation” between Amul and Karnataka Milk Federation brand Nandini.

Terming it a “brazen move” to control dairy cooperatives in states, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the party will strongly oppose the BJP’s efforts to centralise control of cooperatives by replacing farmers’ control with theirs.

With assembly elections just a month away in Karnataka, the Congress has trained its guns at the ruling BJP and expressed fears that Nandini, the Rs 21,000 crore brand, from the KMF could be merged with Anand Milk Union Limited (AMUL). The BJP has emphatically rejected the charge.

“The Congress party will not allow the time to come when the BJP may raise the slogan of “One Nation, One Milk’,” Ramesh said in a statement. In its election campaign in Karnataka, and in political activities across the country, the Congress will explain to people the “sinister agenda” behind these moves and resolve to oppose them through all possible democratic means, he said.

The Congress leader alleged that the BJP and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah are trying to ignore the Constitution which clearly demarcates cooperative societies as a state subject. In December last year, Shah had said during the inauguration of KMF’s mega dairy in Mandya that “cooperation between Amul and Nandini can do wonders in the dairy sector.” Gujarat-based dairy cooperative Amul announced on April 5 that it would enter the Karnataka market to supply its milk and curd.

In his statement, Ramesh alleged that Shah’s “enforced cooperation” between Amul and Nandini is a “brazen move by BJP to control dairy cooperatives in states.”

Noting that Amul and Nandini are both national success stories of the White Revolution, Ramesh said it was started by Verghese Kurien in Anand and spread across India when prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri established the National Dairy Development Board in 1965.