The first phase of IFFCO elections is over with the co-op titan electing 847 delegates, 63 more than the last time. Also, delivering on its promise of giving 5% reservation for women cooperators in RGB, IFFCO has elected 46 women.
The next phase is finalization of the voter list. The newly elected women cooperators would now elect a woman director to the IFFCO board. There are several Directors on the IFFCO Board for more than 2-3 terms. The prospects of these incumbent directors getting reelected is considered as beak in the IFFCO circles.
Sharing the news of the elections conducted so far, Tarun Bhargava, the IFFCO official assisting the Returning officer said on Friday, “The list is yet to be finalized but according to the data received over 46 women cooperators are elected in IFFCO’s RGB for the first time in the history of the organization. 14 women cooperators altogether are elected from North eastern states. Sadhana Jadhav from Maharashtra, T Lalmuanpuli from Mizoram, Ayesha Begum Laskar from Assam and others well known women cooperators made to the RGB of IFFCO”, he said.
IFFCO MD Dr U S Awasthi also shared the news through social media and wrote, “The 14th RGB has people from all walks of life and from almost all the states of India esp. the #northeastern states. What makes this RGB unique is the fact that we have reserved 5% seats for #women at delegate level to inc. their participation at all levels.”
“Although several other veteran cooperators including Dileepbhai Sanghani Chairman of Gujarat based Gujcomasol, Jayesh Radadiya, Minister in Gujarat Cabinet, JD(S) MLA from Karnataka Srinivas Gowda, Outgoing Chairman of IFFCO B.S.Nakai and others made to the RGB of IFFCO. The delegates from Gujarat count 138 whereas as Uttar Pradesh has 122 delegates”, Bhargava informed this correspondent at the IFFCO headquarters, Saket.
Bhargava said, “It is to be mentioned here that IFFCO’s RGB has equal and fair representation. We have given equal importance to both small and large cooperative societies spread across India without any discrimination. The election has been conducted fairly using a computer based methodology”, he said.
After the RGB election, the election of the board of directors of IFFCO is scheduled for May 10 2019. The IFFCO board consists of 21 elected directors- 8 from Marketing federation, 12 from other cooperative societies and one seat reserved for a woman candidate.
“The election of RGB was a long drawn process but we executed it without delay. For the past several months, we had been in the process of making database of societies spread across the country”, he said while showing the database file to this correspondent.
R D Agrawala, Senior Advocate had been overseeing the election process as the Returning officer.
