Even before it could be kicked off the cooperative committees’ elections in Uttrakhand has hit a roadblock. The High Court of Uttarakhand has ordered an interim stay on the cooperative committees’ elections in the State till July 30 and sought a reply from the State Government in a fortnight.
The court took note of a petition which charged that there are errors in ward delimitation. There are issues of no reservation for OBCs and delimitation of wards. Udham Singh Nagar resident Rajendra Singh had filed a petition, reports Pioneer.
The nominations for cooperative polls in Uttarakhand had started from 12 July. Polling which was scheduled to be starting from July 22 was to be completed by February 2019. The state unit of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) constituted a five member committee for the elections with an aim to capture power which was with the cooperators connected with Congress party.
The election process of PACS Societies, District Cooperative Banks and that of the state-level apex body federations of various co-operative sectors is supposed to be completed in eight months. In the first phase, 670 PACS will go to the polls.
There are 759 PACS in all in Uttarakhand but elections will be held for only 670 PACS and the remaining ones are either defunct or unviable for a variety of reasons.
In the next phase ten District Cooperative Banks, 13 State level apex cooperative federations will go to the polls.
It is learnt that more than 15 lakh members are associated with these societies directly or indirectly. After assuming office, the BJP government has changed the name of PACCS society into Multi Purpose Cooperative Society and it is worth a mention that most PACS are controlled by the Congress party.
Earlier, Uttarakhand PACS’ office bearers’ had knocked on the door of High Court against the state government appointed Administrators in all these societies without carrying out the required election process. Later on, accepting the argument of PACS, the High Court had asked the state government to hold elections to these societies in three months.