Nagpur: The Lok Kranti Panel, led by Ruling Party Leader and Senior Corporator Dayashankar Tiwari created a history by bagging 16 posts of Directors of Nagpur Municipal Corporation Employees’ Cooperative Bank. The elections for 21 posts of Director were held on May 3. The counting of votes also created a history of sorts. The counting process that had begun on May 4 morning continued till 5 in the morning of May 5. The counting will go into a record for its marathon time unprecedented for such a small election. By pocketing 16 posts the Lok Kranti Panel humiliated other panels that had to be content with only five posts.The stalwarts of Lok Kranti Panel who emerged winners include Rajkumar Kanathe, Rajendra Thakre and Radheshyam Nimje. Possibility is that the next President of NMC Employees’ Cooperative Bank could be among these three winning candidates. The rest of the winning Directors could be made President sometime during their five-year term. However, this same panel’s much-talked candidates namely Rajesh Hathibed and Jitendra Gaekwad had to lick the dusts in the election. Raju Bhvgade, the only official level candidate of the panel, won with big margin in SC category.
The elections for posts of Directors of NMC Employees’ Co-operative Bank were held on Sunday (May 3). 73.61 percent voters (employees) exercised their franchise in the peaceful polls that were held at Hanuman Nagar-based Ishwar Deshmukh College polling centre. 74 candidates were in the fray. The total number of voters stood at 5245 including NMC employees and teachers. Of the 5245 voters, 3861 cast their votes for the election of 21 posts of Directors. Before the elections, the Lok Kranti Panel had 14 posts of Directors of the Bank.
The counting began at 10 am on Monday (May 4) and till 6 in the evening, results of five seats were declared that included one each of SC, ST, NT candidates and two women candidates. The SC post was won by Raju Bhivgade, NT post by Sushil Yadav and the OBC post went to Vijay Kathvate. The two women candidates who emerged winners are Pratibha Siriya and Kalpana Chahande. All these winners belonged to Lok Kranti Panel.
After the conclusion of entire counting process at five in the morning of May 5, the results of all the remaining 16 posts were announced. 11 more candidates of Lok Kranti Panel were declared winners including Shashikant Admane, Rajkumar Kanathe, Dilipkumar Chaudhary, Nitin Zade, Pradeep Dakhole, Dilip Devgade, Radheshyam Nimje, Dhanraj Mendhekar, Vitthal Kshirsagar, Anil Meshram, and Rajendra Thakre. The winning candidates of Lok Kranti Panel credited their handsome victory to Ruling Party Leader and Senior Corporator Dayashankar Tiwari and his ‘shadow’ Avinash Sahu.
Apart from 16 candidates of Lok Kranti Panel, others who emerged winners included Surendra Tingne of Tingne Group, Ishwar Meshram, Gautam Patil, Dattatray Dahake and Rajesh Gavre.
Highlights of the election:
• The Ward Officer Raju Bhivgade has reserved attitude. He was earlier found avoiding public, subordinates and the problems as well. Will he change after assuming the post of Director is the question.
• The candidate of Lok Kranti Panel who spent maximum amount in the election – around Rs 1-1.50 lakh – and emerged winner was Nitin Baburao Zade.
• Almost all the victorious candidates bunked their official duties since the past 20-25 days except campaigning for their panel. Will they do justice to the posts of Directors and official duties in the next five years?
• Despite May 4 being holiday on account of Buddha Pournima, hundreds of NMC employees gathered at the counting centre premises and stuck there till late night. The talk of the crowd mainly focused on interest of women class in the election and their large presence. On the other hand, the top officials were getting updated on their mobile phones about the results.
– RAJEEV RANJAN KUSHWAHA(rajeev.nagpurtoday@gmail.com)
