Sunil Singh Biscomaun Chairman who seems to have become a resident of Delhi of let is not to be found in town these days. Reason- he is caught in a grueling exercise of the Biscomaun elections currently underway in Bihar.
Biscomaun is the apex cooperative marketing federation for the undivided state which includes Jharkhand. Last week on 25th March the giant cooperative federation elected 208 delegates in an election held simultaneously in all the districts of Bihar and Jharkhand. There are 40 districts in Bihar and 26 in Jharkhand.
Sunil who is on the Board of KRIBHCO and an insider on the cooperative power circuit in Delhi was, however emphatic that this election is not the one usually seen in the cooperative world.
Without naming anyone he said ”cooperators usually appoint their cronies as election officers and start manipulating the entire elections to suit their political agenda. Here we appointed R K Singh, an ADG rank police officer known for his no-nonsense and fair attitude”, he said.
How could those sponging off leaders’ be fair and act independently as election officers? The outgoing Biscomaun Chairman asked. You appoint such a daabang(strong) election officer only when you are genuinely popular at ground level and have no fear of losing, Sunil added.
In the elections to the Board of several national cooperative federations the number of total eligible directors are woefully low, in some cases it is as low as three. He was referring obliquely to NCCF without taking its name where there were only 3 eligible directors in the elections held recently.
The Directors numbering 20 for the new Biscomaun Board are to be elected on April 20 and Sunil sounded confident of winning without difficulty. The Board will have adequate representation from the categories of Women, Scheduled Cast and Tribe with one member from each category. We have also filtered the PACS as two directors from 8400 PACS are also going to be in the Biscomaun Board, he said.
”See the representatives in our elected list of delegates. We have representatives from 16 Central co-op banks out of 22 in the state. Panchanan Babu who is in his 90’s and senior even to late Tapeshwar Singh has also been elected,” Singh added underscoring fairness of this election.
But his arch rival and one of the members on the prvious board Vinay Sahi pooh-poohs Sunil’s claim. Shahi has gone to court seeking stay on the election. But Sunil says since he realized he could not win he is adopting these tactics.
Boasting about fairness of the election Biscomaun Chairman reminded this correspondent that details of the election were advertised 9 times. The successful list of delegates posted on Biscomaun website shows candidates’ names, photographs and signatures scotching all confusion.
If this is not transparency what else is, even the country’s Election Commission could learn a thing or two from us , said a proud Sunil Singh patting himself on the back. But his detractors are not convinced and point fingers at the incidences of violence reported from many districts including Samastipur and Devghar on 25th March.
From scrutiny to election to counting-how could all be done in a single day, asks Vinay Sahi who is locked in legal battle with Sunil Singh, the next hearing of which is slated for 31st March.