Election to the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) Board slated for November 2011 is hotting up in India. There are two vacancies and interim election is to take place on the occasion of General Assembly of ICA in 14-18 November 2011 in Cancun (Mexico).
ICA Board members for two years are to be elected from India and Poland. In India ,IFFCO has been the lone member on the board of ICA. Vacancy created by sudden demise of IFFCO Chairman, Surender Jakhar led to a rat race as to who would go to the board next.
There are two candidates in fray from India- Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, President of NCUI and IFFCO nominee, Shri K Srinivasa Gowda.
Gowda was nominated by the ICA in place of Jakhar. But now for two years of remaining term, the race has begun. Canvassing across the world is being done to woo voters and effort to convince them of their impeccable track-record is going on.
There are twenty members on the board of ICA including President. Any country, no matter how big, can have just one member on the Board. There is varying number of delegates to General Assembly but in no case would it be more than 25 from a country. India has 12 delegates to the General Assembly.
For a country like India who is at the helm of global cooperative movement, efforts should be made to have consensus candidate. Talking to Indiacooperative.com, ICA Asia-Pacific Regional Director Dr Chan Ho Choi said that country matters not the individual.
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.