Former State BJP president and Ex-Rajya Sabha MP Abhay Kant Prasad has been elected as the Chairman of the Bank in an election which took place after a long gap. Kant was declared elected not only on the strength of votes but also lottery.
There were two candidates in the race for the Chairmanship and they both polled equal number of votes, leading to a peculiar situation. Abhay Kant Prasad and the other candidate Vibha Singh received 52-52 votes each. Vibha Singh is incidentally wife of senior Cooperative Department officer Jaidev Singh.
To wriggle out of the situation, the office bearers and directors of the cooperative department decided to select the chairman through lottery system. Abhay Kant Prasad won the lottery and thus was declared elected as Chairman of the Bank.
It bears recall that the nomination and scrutiny were held on 29th and 30th October 2018. The withdrawal was till 5 November. The polling was held on 19th November.
The election was held at bank headquarters in which out of 127 voters, 124 voters cast their votes. The election concluded under the supervision of District cooperative officer Manoj Kumar.
The board of Jharkhand State Cooperative Bank comprises of 14 members. Seven Directors were elected on Monday. Three women got elected unopposed. Four members are to be nominated. The election of board members was held after 1992.
It bears recall that in 2017 the merger of DCCBs with state cooperative bank were done. Cooperative Bank has 122 branches across the state.
Jharkhand has no state cooperative union in the state. A BJP ruled state it stands at the bottom with just 17 thousand co-ops, according to a study done by the apex co-op body NCUI recently.
Profiling of cooperatives in the country revealed a massive surge in the number of cooperatives in the country-from 6.10 lakhs to 7.35 lakhs but for Jharkhand the movement has been non-starter so far.
