If Monday’s swearing-in-ceremony of Modi Sarkar looked corporate friendly with the presence of Ambanis and Adanis it also gave hints of the new government being equally friendly with the Cooperative sectors.
Scores of cooperative leaders received invitations from the President House to participate in the event billed by many as change of era and not merely change of regime. The Vice-President of National Cooperative Union G H Amin represented the apex cooperative body along with Narayan Bhai Patel, a GC member.
IFFCO Managing Director U S Awasthi was also invited and he went to attend the same on Monday evening. IFFCO perhaps qualified both as a cooperative and a corporate due to its huge turn-over as Dr Awasthi was invited in the corporate category as well. To a terse reply to Indian Cooperative query on his participation Dr Awasthi said “yes I was there with corporate”.
Amin informed that Dilip Bhai Sanghani, another senior cooperator and Cooperation Minister in Gujarat was also invited for the function.
Jyotinder Mehta who has the credit of having Prime Minister’s saving bank account in his urban cooperative bank as reported earlier in these paragraphs, was also invited for the function.
Other notables included Satish Marathe, President of Sahkar Bharati and Vijaji Deangan, its organizing Secretary. There could be many more cooperators who attended the function and would be known later.