After the Madhya Pradesh High Court verdict, the path for the elections of cooperatives in the state has been cleared and these are going to be held in different phases from January 2024-March 2024.
Meanwhile, the MP State Election Authority announced the election schedule for Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) to district cooperative banks. There are more than 4500 PACS in the state.
It bears recalling that the last elections were held in 2014 and after the completion of the term of board of directors, the elections have been pending for the past five years.
In last five years, in Madhya Pradesh two political parties including Congress and BJP had ruled the state but no government took cooperative elections seriously. As a result, cooperators moved the court and filed a case.
The Madhya Pradesh chapter of Sahakar Bharati raised the issue of election and also held protests in different parts of the state against the BJP government for not holding elections.
“The former BJP government led by Shivraj Singh Chauhan didn’t hold any elections, now we are hoping that under the leadership of Mohan Yadav, the elections will be held in a fair and transparent manner”, said Sahakar Bharati’s MP Chapter General Secretary Yogendra Singh Sisodiya.
While releasing the election schedule, the Madhya Pradesh State Cooperative Election Officer informed that Chief Justice of the High Court has asked that the cooperative elections should be completed before the Lok Sabha elections.
According to the order, the elections for primary agricultural credit cooperative institutions should be completed before March 10, 2024. Keeping this in view, an election program for cooperative societies has been proposed in four phases.
It bears recall that in many of the cooperative societies, administrators have been overseeing the activities for many years. Whereas according to the Act, an administrator is appointed for a period of 6 months only.
