Satej Patil’s panel wins Gokul dairy polls 13-12, Mahayuti heavyweights lose

Congress legislator Satej Patil has wrested control of Gokul, the Kolhapur District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union, after his Rajarshi Shahu Shetkari Samvichari Aghadi won 13 of the 25 board seats. The Mahayuti-backed Chhatrapati Shahu Shetkari Vikas Aghadi, which had the support of state ministers and MPs from the ruling alliance, took the remaining 12, according to Pudhari, TV9 Marathi and UNI.

Polling was held on Sunday, 18 October, with almost every one of the 5,418 eligible delegates turning out, Free Press Journal reported. Counting began at 8 am on Monday at the Ramanmala hall in Kolhapur and stretched late into the night amid recount demands and allegations of delay.

A tally that kept shifting

Early trends confused the picture. Pudhari said the Mahayuti panel initially led in most general seats before Patil’s side pulled ahead after the second round, and Sakal group outlets at one stage reported his panel ahead in 14 seats. TV9 Marathi said the alliance had at one point been leading in 15, but a recount of one seat handed it to Mahayuti’s Amar Patil at the expense of Sachin Ghorpade. Free Press Journal’s report body initially carried a 16-9 split before its headline was updated to 13-12. The final declared result, carried by all the outlets checked, was 13 for Patil’s alliance and 12 for Mahayuti.

According to Pudhari, Mahayuti won 12 of the 20 general seats, but Patil’s panel swept all five reserved seats, which proved decisive. Patil and farmer leader Raju Shetti accused officials of deliberately delaying the announcement, Saam TV reported. Pudhari said a recount request from two former directors was turned down by the returning officer.

Heavyweights fall

Several prominent Mahayuti candidates lost. Navid Mushrif, son of minister Hasan Mushrif and a former Gokul chairman, was beaten by Shashikant Khot in the OBC seat by 69 votes, Free Press Journal said. Shoumika Mahadik of the Mahadik family, a former director, lost a women’s reserved seat by a very narrow margin; eSakal pages variously put it at seven and 13 votes, and her recount demand did not change the outcome. Former chairmen Arun Dongale and Vishwas Patil were also defeated, as was former MLA Sujit Minchekar, according to Pudhari.

Patil fought largely alone against an alliance that Saam TV said included Chandrakant Patil, Hasan Mushrif, Dhananjay Mahadik, Prakash Abitkar and Vinay Kore. He campaigned on a promise of ₹5 more per litre for milk producers, ₹100 less per bag of cattle feed, and opposition to turning Gokul into a multi-state cooperative. NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar called the verdict a signal ahead of coming polls. Mahayuti leaders had not commented at the time of the reports.

Why Gokul matters

Set up in 1963, Gokul is among Maharashtra’s largest dairy cooperatives. DairyNews Today reported a turnover of ₹3,966.28 crore in 2024-25 and a network of about 4.41 lakh milk producers in some 1,810 villages. Control of its board has long been a barometer of power in Kolhapur politics: the Mahadik and P N Patil camps ran it for three decades until 2021, when Satej Patil and Hasan Mushrif jointly took over. Mushrif’s later move to the ruling side turned this year’s contest into a direct test between the two former partners.

Sources: Free Press Journal, Pudhari, TV9 Marathi, Saam TV, eSakal, DairyNews Today