The murky politics at the AP Mahesh Bank witnessed during the elections and subsequent counting of votes, have finally landed the UCB in the court. In a writ filed by the opposition parties, a demand to appoint an Administrator has been made. Sadly, the ego-clashes of co-operators have brought a successful UCB to a halt.
The whole issue started with Bhagwati Baldawa, the Chairman candidate from the Founder’s Panel complaining that her voters were not allowed to cast their votes due to the shortage of EVMs. Out of 34 k members of the bank only around 13.5k members could cast their votes, claimed Baldawa.
It resulted into the Andhra Pradesh State Election Commission ordering stoppage of the counting of votes for the last four booths. Talking to Indian Cooperative, Esther Rani John, Returning Officer said, “The state election commission has given us written instruction to withhold the counting of votes of the last four booths.”
RO further said “They have not given any deadline when to resume the counting of votes. We don’t know why they asked us to stop the counting but we have to follow their instruction”, she said. At present, we are in communication with the commission and the picture would be clearer sooner than later”, she said.
It bears recall that a total 61 EVMs were deployed in different polling booths. It was also the first time the election of the bank was held through the EVMs. Earlier it used to be held through ballot paper.
Meanwhile, shareholders associated with Mahesh Bank have launched a twitter campaign demanding immediate counting of votes. One of the twitter users namely, Raghav Rathi wrote, “Election for Board of A.P.Mahesh Co-op. Bank held on 20-12-2020. Illegal stoppage of counting of Votes by Returning Officer Smt Esther Rani. Request for immediate counting of votes and declaring Results in the interest of JUSTICE. @CEO_Telangana @ECISVEEP @KTRTRS”.
It bears recall that the two panels–Sansthapak Panel and the Founder Panel headed by Ramesh Bung and Bhagwati Baldewa respectively, were locked into nasty fight in the run up to the elections. Each have fielded 15-15 candidates each.
It is being reported that the results till the last counting of votes was in the favour of the Sansthapak Panel which is led by Ramesh Bung but at the last minute the leaders of the opposition panel created ruckus at the counting centre.