Congress backed candidates sweep HP State Co-op Bank elections

Congress backed candidates won the election of Himachal Pradesh State Cooperative Bank held on Thursday. Out of eight elected seats of directors, the leaders associated with congress won seven seats and only a single seat went in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

It bears recall that the election was held for six seats because two candidates won the election unopposed. The schedule for the election of the Chairman of the apex bank is yet to be announced. Interestingly, there is no post of Vice-Chairman in the Bank. According to sources outgoing Chairman Devendra Shyam is the front runner for the top post.

The outgoing Chairman Devendra Shyam, who contested the election from Shimla Zone-2, won the election with huge margins defeating his rival Sher Singh Chauhan. Shyam got 93 votes whereas Chauhan received only 20 votes.

Whereas, from Sirmour district, BJP leader and former MLA from Sirmaur Late Jagat Singh Negi’s daughter in law Shruti Negi lost the election. In the said constituency, Congress backed candidate Bharat Bhushan Mohil got 65 votes whereas his rival Ms. Negi received only 35 votes.

The congress was not able to save the seat of Mandi Zone-1 and it has gone in favor of Priyabrat Sharma, the BJP backed candidate. Interestingly, from Mandi Zone-2, the Congress-backed candidate Virendra Gularia lost the election but the independent candidate and the congress leader Keshav Nayak won the elections with good margins.

From Bilaspur constituency, Dr Jagdish Chandra won the election whereas from Chamba seat Ram Singh Chambiyal was elected as the Director.

Out of eight directors, two have already been elected unopposed. One of them is Pawan Chauhan from Shimla (Zone-1) district and the other is the outgoing director Pitambar Singh Negi from Kinnaur district.

It bears recall that in the election of HP State Cooperative Bank, the top congress leadership at state level failed to manage the leaders of their own cadre. And it was seen in the election that in a few constituencies 2 or 3 candidates belonging to Congress had fought the election.

Meanwhile, social media has been flooded with congratulatory messages. The respective followers of the winning directors lost no time in greeting them through social media.

Readers would recall that Himachal Pradesh State Cooperative Bank earned a gross profit of Rs 303 crore, which is the highest ever in the history of the bank in the 2022-23 FY. The business mix of the bank crossed to more than Rs 22,700 crore.