Indian cooperative leaders are yet to prepare themselves for the election to ICA Board slated for October-November this year. Talking to Indian Cooperative.com, the apex cooperative body NCUI’s President said that any decision on the ensuing election would be taken only after July.
“It is long distance in time to go yet and we are meanwhile busy organizing International Cooperative Congress in May”, said Dr Chandra Pal Singh Yadav.
But NCUI President stressed the need of having a consensus candidate for the ICA Board. Cooperative movement in India is pretty strong and we need to have our representative on the world body, he added.
India lost ICA Board membership to Iran in the election in Cancun in Mexico in 2011. There was confusion among cooperative leaders of the country as IFFCO nominee Sriniwas Gowda and NCUI President Chandra Pal Singh vied for the post.
In a dramatic turn of events though Chandra Pal withdrew from the race but the ghost of Nafed scam did Gowda in resulting into the Iranian win at the election.
Trying to avoid repeat of the bad experience cooperative leaders are likely to tread cautiously this time. “Before reaching a conclusion, we will consult leaders from all the sectors”, said Chandra Pal to Indian Cooperative.com.
“It’s a long time into the future and much water would have flown down the river by then”, said Mr US Awasthi, Managing Director of IFFCO when Indian Cooperative contacted him to know his preparations for the election to the ICA Board. IFFCO represented India on the last ICA board.
A cross section of cooperators told Indian Cooperative that due to his increasing involvement in the affairs of Samajwadi party in Uttar Pradesh Chandra Pal Singh Yadav may not join the race leaving the field open for the IFFCO nominee. They cited the announcement of his name in the list released by the Samajwadi Party for the next Lok-Sabha election.
But Mr Singh vehemently denied playing any lesser role in cooperatives due to political engagements.” Rather I would be more effective and instrumental in solving the problems plaguing the cooperative sector if I got elected to the Lok Sabha”, he told Indian Cooperative.
There are twenty members on the board of ICA including President. Any country, no matter how big, can have just one member on the Board. The numbers of delegates to General Assembly may vary but in no case would it be more than 25 from a country. India has 12 delegates in the General Assembly.
Indiancooperative.com wrote in earlier pieces that for a country like India which is at the forefront of the global cooperative movement, efforts should be made to have a consensus candidate.
Talking to Indiacooperative.com, even ICA Asia-Pacific Regional Director Dr Chan Ho Choi had said that country matters not the individual.
ICA is an independent, non-governmental association which unites, represents and serves co-operatives worldwide. Founded in 1895, ICA has 254 member organisations from 94 countries active in all sectors of the economy. Together these co-operatives represent nearly one billion people worldwide.





















