Sahakar Panel sweeps Maha State Co-op Banks’ Association elections

The Sahakar Panel has made a clean sweep of the elections of Maharashtra State Cooperative Banks Association. The elections were held on Tuesday and the results were announced today.

Out of 21 seats of the board of directors, the Sahakar Panel led by Vishwas Cooperative Bank Chairman Vishwas Thakur won 18 and the rest were won by the opposite panel. The winning candidates belonged to different political parties including BJP, Congress, NCP and others.

Readers would recall that 10 directors have been elected unopposed, out of which the only one seat was won by the opposite panel. But in the elections of 11 seats 19 candidates were in the fray. Out of these 11 seats only 2 seats were won by the opposite panel and the rest by the Sahakar Panel.

The Sahakar Panel candidates including Santosh Kelkar from Mumbai based Janakalyan Sahakari Bank and Ravinder Kale from Aurangabad based Shivaji Nagari Sahakari Bank failed to win the elections. The defeated candidates lost by a narrow margin. Kale and Kelkar got 18 and 9 votes respectively.

The winning candidates from the Sahakar Panel include Supriya Patil, Roopa Desia, Yogini Pokhle, Jagannath Bingewar, Kailash Jain, Rajendra Suryavanshi, Mukund Kamalakar, Rajendra Mohale, Pranchit Pareddywar, Digambar Durgade, Gulabrao Devkar, Arjunrao Gade, Vasantrao, Subhash Joshi, Bhau Kad, Ravinder Durgakar, Sanjay Bhende and Vishwas Thakur.

The term of the board will be of five years. There were 224 eligible voters. Prashant Satpute had been appointed as the returning officer to oversee the election process.

The said association is the apex body of Maharashtra’s State Cooperative Bank, Urban Cooperative Banks and District Central Cooperative Banks. Interestingly, Maharashtra’s former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had headed the association in 1998.

The association had received the guidance of eminent people from the country like R.G.Saraiya , V. L. Mehta , D. R. Gadgil, D. G. Karve and Vasantdada Patil, a remarkable succession of able and devoted public and co-operative spirited men .

The elections of Chairman and Vice-Chairman will be held in a couple of days.