The die has been cast. Players are girding up as Indian Cooperative’s political temperature soars up in the wake of impending ICA Board elections. Undeniably, various “theories” are also having their field day.
One of the them doing rounds in N Delhi is that U S Awasthi, Managing director of IFFCO and Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, President of National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) have struck a secret deal on the ICA election.
Indian Cooperative was told by a cooperator, on the condition of anonymity, that IFFCO was to support NCUI’s President candidature at the election of ICA Asia-Pacific while the latter would support the former in the November election in Cape Town. Readers could recall Indian Cooperative was the first portal to break the story of Chandra Pal’s victory.
India has about 12 delegates in the ICA’s General Assembly and a divided house is bound to be exploited by others.
In the interim election held a couple of years ago to fill-up the vacancy created by the untimely demise of Surender Jakhar , Chandra Pal Singh had withdrawn his candidature in the run-up to the election in support of IFFCO nominee. But IFFCO’s candidate K Sriniwas Gowda lost his chance due to his name cropping up in NAFED tie-up scam.
Recently, IFFCO has nominated NP Patel, its Chairman to fight for the election. Mr Patel told Indian Cooperative that talking to cooperators including NCUI’s President Chandra Pal Singh is high on his agenda.
Though NCUI’s President’s Phone was not reachable on Sunday he had shared earlier with Indian Cooperative that he would decide about his own candidature after consulting the cooperators of the nation. There are about 20 national level cooperative federations mostly based in Delhi.
Awasthi’s office chose not to react on this “theory” while G N Saxena, Director of Cooperative Relation told Indian Cooperative that IFFCO had cast all its 15 votes supporting Chandra Pal in ICA Asia-Pacific election. Saxena added he did it at the instruction of Mr Awasthi. He ,however, denied having knowledge of any such secret pact.
As required by the ICA’s Bylaws, Board members serve a four-year term and can stand for re-election. Board members attend up to three meetings per year, held in various regions of the world. The positions are self-financing, which means that either the Board member or his or her organisation must cover the costs of attending the meetings.
ICA’s board is currently comprised of the President, four Vice Presidents, two representatives of the global sectoral organisations, one youth representative and 15 other at-large members.