Rajkot MP Kundariya set to become NAFED director

Gandhinagar: Outgoing BJP MP from Rajkot, Mohan Kundariya, has emerged as the sole nominee for the position of director at the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) from Gujarat. He will be declared the uncontested winner in the elections scheduled for May 21 in Delhi.
The BJP averted another IFFCO-like situation this time around by not endorsing any cooperative leader for the NAFED director post.
Kundariya will serve the director for a period of five years after the other four who filed their nominations for the post backed out of the fray on Wednesday — the last day to withdraw the nominations.
The election of Kundariya to the post of NAFED director ended up being a cordial affair. Cooperative leader and IFFCO chairman Dileep Sanghani said, “The four cooperative leaders were affiliated with the BJP and consented to name the MP for the post.”
The NAFED director election had become a keenly observed matter as it came on the heels of the high-octane IFFCO director election held last week. Jayesh Radadiya, the BJP MLA from Jetpur, was elected as a director to the IFFCO board despite the BJP giving the mandate to Bipin ‘Gota’ Patel, the coordinator of the party’s cooperative cell and vice-chairman of Gujarat State Cooperative Marketing Federation Limited (Gujcomasol).
The IFFCO director election had stirred tension between state BJP president C R Paatil and Sanghani over Radadiya’s election. Paatil had said in a video that “certain people courted different parties in the name of cooperation and caused damage to the BJP”. Sanghani countered this, saying that the election was held in a democratic process where the BJP members had elected a leader from the party itself. As a fallout, other BJP leaders had also voiced their disgruntlement over the influx of Congress leaders.
There are a total of 21 directors on the board of NAFED, of which Gujarat has a share of two directors. BJP MLA Jetha Bharwad holds the post of the other director from Gujarat.
There are about 250 electors from Gujarat who are eligible to elect directors of NAFED.