H P Gemini, Deputy Director in the Ministry of agriculture has been appointed Returning officer for the elections of the National Labour Cooperative Federation (NLSF) scheduled for 16th July.
And with it, a hectic campaigning has begun for the Director’s post. Ashoke Dabas who is locked into a legal battle with the apex body of the labour cooperative is caught in a bind after the declaration of the elections.
Sources say Mr Dabas wants to build bridges with the Chairman Sanjiv Kushalkar and the Managing Director R M Pandey in order to re-enter the Board.
Earlier, the NLCF Board passed a resolution serving a show cause notice to Mr Dabas asking him why his Indian Labour Cooperative Society Limited not be expelled from the membership of the National Labour Cooperative Federation (NLCF). Dabas got a stay from the Court.
Indian Cooperative has reliably learnt that Ashoke Dabas who is also a member of the Governing Council in the apex cooperative body NCUI has approached its President Dr Chandra Pal Singh Yadav for a rapprochement.
Mr Yadav who is said to wield substantial clout in the cooperative world had called Mr Pandey , the Managing Director of the NLCF. But sensing Mr Pandey’s strong reservations about Dabas he did not raise the issue and the meeting ended in general bonhomie.
Later, a source confided to Indian Cooperative that Pandey wants Chairman Sanjiv Kushalkar to take a call in the matter. Mr Kushalkar is based in Pune.
The source informed that the next meeting on the issue of re-inducting Dabas may take place in the next week.
The election is crucial for Dabas whose membership of the Governing Council of the NCUI is co-terminus with his place on the NLCF Board. If he loses in the latter he would stand evicted from the NCUI where he has occupied an office space as a gift from the President Mr Yadav
Detractors of Dabas point out that he had never been steady in his relations even with Chandra Pal ,several episodes of his deserting him in the past bear it out.
The story of a feud between Dabas and Pandey is an old one. While Dabas charges the MD with harming the apex body by wasting resources and doing practically nothing, the latter accuses Dabas of indulging in mud-slinging and thus weakening the institution.
The fight took a bitter turn when the NFCL Board wrote to the NCUI asking it to withdraw Dabas from the NCUI Board as he no longer represented the NFCL.
Dabas who approached the Central Registrar in the matter had got relief.