The cooperative election has all the ingredients of a bollywood pot-boiler in which the so called “close associates” hatch a plot to back-stab the chief protagonist. But Kushalkar outsmarted them all, said an insider.
The dramatic rise of Ashok Dabas and Ramesh Ramhut says more than meets the eye. Till the beginning of polling they did not know if they are “in” or “out”. But in the remaining 20 minutes, delegates were handed a list of panel candidates in which Jagjit Sangwan was excluded and Dabas was included.
Sources said that Sagwan and team plotted a conspiracy against Kushalkar and met in Punjab Bhawan wherein it was decided that displaying exterior loyalty to Kushalkar they will enter board without election and would team up along with govt nominee to reduce Kushalkar into minority.
But bred since childhood in cooperative politics, Kushalkar smelled the plot and decided to go in for election which allowed him to choose his panel of candidates. Since he has magical hold over each and every delegate, his candidates polled more than 100 votes out of 118.
The final list of winners included Sanjiv Rajaram Kushalkar (Chairman), Bhaskar G Hedge (Vice-Chairman), W Z Tekram( Vice-Chairman), Ashok Dabas, Amit Bajaj , Kasipeta Lingaiah, Ramesh Ramhut, VVP Nair and others.
An energized Kushalkar vowed to change the functioning of apex cooperative and was visibly unhappy with the non-performance of current MD R M Pandey. I have called meeting of all staff at NCUI’s hostel and would guide them as to how to go about the job. We have decided to turn around the apex cooperative body, Kushalkar said to Indian Cooperative.
Mincing no words he said that MD has to improve a lot as waiting for governmental grant alone will not help. If we can do profitable business in Pune and Maharashtra why cannot we do so in Delhi, he asked?
Pandey is also rumoured to have played dirty politics in this election against the Chairman, though he has the distinction of working with the senior Kushalkar.