In a recent judgment Uttarakhand High Court has rejected nearly half a dozen petitions related to the elections of Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies in the state and paved the way for resumption of election process.
In the judgment High court rejected all the petitions and directed the election commission to hold the elections. Talking to this correspondent one of the members of the committee formed by BJP to oversee the cooperative elections in the state Dan Singh Rawat said, “since the petitions have been filed after the conclusion of the process of elections, they violate the ruling given by the Supreme Court in the case of N.P. Ponnuswami”. This was the major argument we put before the High Court, he stated.
Readers would recall that the board members of five PACCs of Udhamsingh Nagar district had earlier knocked at the door of the Uttarakhand High Court and filed a petition against the BJP govt accusing it of misusing power. The petition also alleged that the state BJP leaders breached norms and laws for winning the elections.
“There are 34 Primary Agriculture Cooperative societies in Udhamsingh Nagar District of the state, out of which the elections to 28 societies have already been conducted and BJP has won 27 of them and the remaining one has been won by others.”
Dan Singh Rawat further said, “We are hoping that the elections of these societies will be over by 15 September and we are making efforts to win all these societies as well ” He told this correspondent on the phone that BJP will sweep
After considering all the facts, the bench rejected the petitions filed in this case.
Claims and counter-claims continue to reign supreme in the state. In the recently concluded PACS elections, while BJP claimed that it won a majority of seats, Congress rejected the claim saying it had won more than 40 per cent seats.
10 District Cooperative Banks and 13 State level apex cooperative federations will go to the polls in the next phase.
Earlier, the High Court of Uttarakhand has ordered an interim stay on the cooperative committees’ elections in the State till July 30 and had sought a reply from the State Government in a fortnight.
There were issues of ward delimitation, no reservation for OBCs, etc. Udham Singh Nagar resident Rajendra Singh had filed a petition.
It is learnt that more than 15 lakh members are associated with these societies directly or indirectly. After assuming office, the BJP government has changed the name of PACCS society into Multi Purpose Cooperative Society and it is worth a mention that most PACS were controlled by the Congress party before BJP emerged to form its govt.