IC Exclusive: Verma vows to free co-ops of Yadavs’ clutch

A new mood has dawned in the most populous state of the country –Uttar Pradesh and the newly appointed Cooperation Minister Mukut Bihari Verma cannot remain unaffected by it.

While the new CM Adityanath Yogi seems determined to reestablish the rule of law and embark on a course of development that would upend the old order, his cabinet colleagues are no less resolved to stem the rot in their respective fields.

Indian Cooperative was perhaps the first news agency that talked to UP’s new cooperative minister Mukut Bihari Verma who in his candid chat with the Indian Cooperative correspondent Rohit Gupta unveiled his vision of how he would overhaul the cooperative sector in the state.

The new minister of cooperation said ”over the course of at least last few years, the cooperative sector in the state had degenerated into a personal fiefdom of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family members”.

“I have resolved to set the sector free from their control. Doing that would amount to rendering a great service to the cooperative movement of the state and also carrying out one of my main responsibilities”, said the minister’ underlining his priority.

”I tell you, freed from political interference, the cooperative sector will flourish into a mass movement capable of bringing about huge improvements in the life of the ordinary people of Uttar Pradesh,” Mr. Verma re-echoed his boss Yogi who is desperately trying to cut UP off from its past moorings.

Readers would recall that most of cooperatives of the state are being headed by the family members of SP Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. Oppositions have accused Shiv Pal Yadav-the younger brother of Mulayam of having grabbed all the co-operative positions violating all democratic norms.

Being the cooperative minister in the Akhilesh govt Shiv Pal not only helped his wife and son but even scores of his other distant relatives gain positions of power in the cooperative sector, BJP leaders maintain.

The new Minister Mukut Bihari Verma, however seemed at a little disadvantage when it came to understanding the problems and intricacies of the issues facing the cooperative sector. When this correspondent queried him about the NDA government’s lack of interest in the 97th Constitutional Amendment which grants citizens a fundamental right to form cooperative Societies, the minister shrugged, feigning ignorance of the matter.

But Verma had no doubt about the power of the cooperative movement when he reiterated the cooperative movement can be converted into a virtual mass movement which can work for the welfare of the people at the grass-roots level.

The task ahead of the new minister is tough as the long years of neglect of the cooperative sector by the former political dispensation have pushed the cooperative movement into dysfunction.