Jo bole so nihal…sat sri akal.. these words rented the air at IFFCO headquarters at Saket in Delhi soon after the returning officer announced the name of Balvinder Singh Nakai as the winner on Friday. This was a long drawn out election spanning six months altogether.
Indian Cooperative proved prophetic when it front-paged Nakia as the front runner in the race. In the Board meeting which followed soon after the victors of contest from the three constituencies were announced, Nakai was elected unopposed as the Chairman of one of the largest cooperatives in the world.
For the vice-chairman the name of N P Patel was proposed and he was also elected unopposed and soon began a scramble to greet the new leaders. The IFFCO Managing Director Mr U S Awasthi was the first to greet both Chairman and Vice-Chairman with bouquet of flowers followed by other Directors.
Meanwhile, the IFFCO enthusiasts were getting restive outside the Board room to greet the new leaders as details of the Boardroom activities were being telecast at TV terminals dotting around the Saket office.
Once the door opened a large number of supporters gathered around Nakai, Patel and Awasthi and drowned them with garlands of flowers and chants of jo bole so nihal. There were about 85 delegates from Punjab who had tuned in large number to see one of them occupying the highest seat of power in the cooperative giant.
Later expressing satisfaction on the successful completion of the election Mr U S Awasthi the Managing Director said “ it was a long process which started in November last year and came to an end today. 815 delegates have elected their board.”
Talking about the new team Mr Awasthi told Indian Cooperative “it is continuity with change. Three new Directors have been elected as three new Federations became our members replacing older ones”.
The election witnessed a keen contest in three constituencies for which polling took place on Friday. Prem Chandra Munshi polled the highest number of votes, he got 44 out of 50 votes. A Parveen Reddy and Tryambakrao G Sirsath also got re-elected though Mr R Ramchandran polled 25 votes from constituency number 3 thereby making the contest interesting.
The composition of the IFFCO Board : 11 directors are elected by the member cooperative societies, 10 directors from member Federations, 7 Functional Directors including Managing Director and two co-opted directors.
The IFFCO office wore a festive look as delegates were happily participating in what has come to be known as the carnival of democracy.