IFFCO made history at the global level when its candidate for the International Cooperative Alliance Board was declared elected with the highest number of votes. Aditya Yadav polled 627 out of total votes of 696- a feat achieved by none so far. He has won a second time consecutively.
“This is no ordinary thing as you get such a clean win only when your support sweeps all the corners and all the continents”, said a former ICA official to Indian Cooperative. Aditya was ahead of Japanese Toru Nakaya and USA’s Martin Lowery who were number 2 and 3 and who polled 622 and 559 votes respectively.
Explaining it further IFFCO Media Head Harshendra Verdhan said “ this is the first time that we got support not only from Asia and Africa but also from North and South Americas”. Verdhan mentioned Europe in the same breath.
Verdhan who accompanied IFFCO MD on his visit to Malaysia was gaga over the kind of respect Dr U S Awasthi commands. “While on the one hand we offered a young and dynamic candidate in Aditya Yadav on the other our MD was able to persuade such constituencies as had hitherto remained untouched by Indian cooperatives”, Verdhan said.
During his short stay at Kuala Lampur Awasthi met hundreds of cooperators from various countries. While lending full support to Argentinean candidate for ICA Presidentship, IFFCO secured votes from South America, its old ties with NCBA CLUSA stood it in good stead when it came to securing North American votes. Overwhelmed by IFFCO MD Dr Awasthi’s style of campaigning Verdhan said “words cannot describe our MD’s skill in negotiation”. He was an immediate hit with world leaders, he added.
IFFCO also thanked home-grown cooperators profusely who rallied behind IFFCO’s candidate. There was unanimity
on IFFCO’s candidate for the ICA Board among Indian cooperators.” He is our lone candidate representing a country which boasts being the land of the strongest cooperative movement in the world,” said many Indian cooperators.
Describing his victory Dr Awasthi tweeted “Heartiest Congratulations & Greetings to #IFFCO’s @spadityayadav for winning his election as Director on Global board of @icacoop. Aditya won with highest vote 627 out of 696. #IFFCO retained the global seat 2nd time in a row. #electionCoop17 #CoopConference17 #gocoop”.
Aditya Yadav also pledged to work for cooperative movement rising above national boundaries and thanked everyone. His tweet read “A Big Thank You to all the cooperators who made this win possible today. I will continue working for the cooperative community across the globe. #CoopConference17 @coopnews @icacoop”.
Earlier, Ariel Guarco from Argentina was declared elected the new Chairman of the global apex body of cooperatives replacing Monique Leroux.
It bears recall that ICA is an independent, non-governmental association which unites, represents and serves co-operatives worldwide. Founded in 1895, ICA has 254 member organisations from 94 countries active in all sectors of the economy. Together these co-operatives represent nearly one billion individuals worldwide.
