Members to 162 co-operative bodies in Vellore elected

The four-phased polls for co-operative societies were announced recently by the state government and the last date for filing nominations ended on Wednesday. It may be noted that the number of members will usually be in odd numbers, mostly 11, to ensure that the chairman was elected without a tie in the contest. 

Of the 756 cooperative bodies in Vellore district, 81 are run by the agriculture, khadi and village industries and the handlooms departments.

One thousand candidates filed nominations for the 81 societies, while another 2,604 for 86 cooperative bodies in Vellore, Tirupattur and Ranipet regions where polls were conducted in the first phase, officials added. 

While members were chosen unanimously for 62 of the 81 agriculture and khadi cooperative bodies, which were controlled by the cooperative registrar, elections will be held for 17 others. No nominations were filed for two cooperative bodies. Similarly, directors were chosen unanimously for 100 of the 105 cooperative bodies controlled by sub registrars. Elections must be conducted only for the remaining five institutions. 

There was a heated atmosphere prior to the co-operative elections as in many places as TTV Dhinakaran-led AMMK proved to be the key rival to the AIADMK. 

DMK alleged that there were irregularities in the polls as their nominations were not accepted in many places. At Sevoor near Arani in Tiruvannamalai district, the native village of HR & CE minister S Ramachandran, DMK partymen complained that they couldn’t file nominations before the deadline on Wednesday as the officer went on leave on Wednesday afternoon. They claimed the officer had received applications from AIADMK members in the morning on the same day. 

In Sholingur, nearly half of the 600 plus members of the cooperative milk producers’ society, including its vice president K Ganesan, found their names omitted from the list of members.