It has a candidate in Aditya Yadav who is perhaps the youngest Director on the IFFCO Board- a stark contrast to N P Patel whose major disadvantage at the last ICA election was he was advanced in years.
Readers would be aware that the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) is convening Meeting of Members (General Body) on 5th October, 2014 at Quebec, Canada. One of the items on the agenda is to conduct elections to fill in one vacancy on the Board of the ICA.
This vacancy has occurred due to resignation of Mr Len Wardel from U.K. Cooperatives. There is one single interim vacancy which will be filled in for the remaining period of the present ICA Board.
The IFFCO has twice been unable to get its candidates elected to the ICA Board after the untimely demise of Surendra Jakhar. First, it was Gowda who bowed out of the race at the last minute due to his alleged involvement in the NAFED scam. And last year it was N P Patel, whose age and lack of ability to carry himself well perhaps did him in.
Patel is also said to have lost on account of some dubious e-mails originating from his home state Gujarat showing him in poor light. The email was sent at the eleventh hour to all international voters, sources claim.
Aditya Yadav is comparatively young, fluent in English and adept at modern ways. He knows how to carry himself with confidence and drop the right phrase at the right time. Besides, he has solid political backing as he is not only the Chairman of PCF, Lucknow but also the scion of the Mulayam family.
It is most unlikely that Aditya will encounter any opposition at home since the NCUI President Chandra Pal Singh who is Mulayam’s acolyte and a member of his socialist party will endorse him without qualification. In the last election Mr. Singh had supported N P Patel on Dr US Awasthi’s request but had underscored at the time the need for -consultations before announcing candidates from India.
Meanwhile, Dr G N Saxena, Director of cooperative development at the IFFCO is frenetically seeking support for Aditya. There are 25 votes from India out of which 14 votes are with the IFFCO alone. The remaining votes are with the NCUI and other national cooperative federations including Fishcopfed.