In an election that went down to the wire, Ms Vibha Singh was declared elected as the Chairperson of Jharkhand State Cooperative Bank on Monday. She won by a single vote defeating her rival Arjun Singh.
Besides these two, the elections had many high-profile candidates including four times MLA Uday Shankar Singh and Praful Singh Ex-journalist and a son of the former Minister of Bihar late Awadhesh Singh. They lost the election by huge margins.
Ms Singh got 35 votes whereas Arjun Singh received 34 votes. Praful Singh and Chunna Singh got 4 and 10 votes respectively.
The newly elected Chairperson is the wife of Jaidev Singh, a Joint Registrar in the Jharkhand Cooperation Department. As soon as her name was announced, her followers profusely garlanded her.
Talking to the Indian Cooperative, the newly elected Chairperson Ms. Singh said, “I will work together with the other team members to take the bank to newer heights. The credit for the victory goes to those who reposed faith in me and handed me this responsibility. I will try my best to meet their expectations”.
The board consists of 17 seats, which includes a Chairman and 16 Directors. In the election 120 people were eligible to cast their votes. Out of 17 seats, the elections were held for 14 seats.
Whereas, for three seats of Directors professional STCCS, only two nominations were filed and they were elected unopposed and one seat went vacant.
The seats for the board of directors have been divided into several categories which include, a director from state level co-ops, three Directors professional STCCS, seven from Women (General), two from Women (Reserved), two Directors (General) and a director from special co-ops.
The former Cooperative Minister and BJP leader Randhir Singh came at the election venue to greet the winners. The social media handles have also been flooded with congratulatory messages.
The lists of elected directors are as follow:
State Level Co-op– Prabhat Kumar Aggarwal
Women (General)– Archana Jha, Nisha Rani, Rehana Khatoon, Sunaina Pathak, Sonali Kumari, Sangeeta Mahali and Saroj Singh
Women (Reserved) SC/ST– Balina Marandi and Munni Rajak
Directors (General)– Kaushalendra Singh and Ramod Prasad
Director from Special Category– Ashok Kumar Chaudhary
Directors professional STCCS– Chandra Prakash, Prabhat Kumar Singh
In the election, out of 120 votes 112 votes were found valid. Afream George Kujur was appointed as the Returning Officer to oversee the election process.
Jharkhand State Cooperative Bank has a deposit base of more than Rs 2000 crore and loans and advances of around Rs 530 crore. The bank earned a net profit of Rs 17.99 crore in the 2021-22 financial year and it is said after the end of the current financial year, it will cross to Rs 30 crore.
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