Lucknow, Sep 3 (UNI) The Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as its supported candidates, swept the Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Land Development Banks polls, winning 281 seats unopposed out of 311 for which elections were held on Tuesday and the results were declared on Wednesday night after counting was completed.
The opposition parties took away some of the 30 seats for which voting was held, the polling at 11 seats was countermanded due to complaints.
It took over three years time for the ruling BJP in the state to break the strong cooperative bank citadel of the Samajwadi Party.
SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was the cooperative minister for the first time in 1977, dent into the cooperative movement and thereafter there was no looking back. But Mulayam gave the cooperative mantel to his younger brother Shivpal Singh Yadav and hence no one challenged him even during the BSP regime between 2007-12.
But for the first time, SP lost the elections in majority of the seats and even its champion Shivpal Singh Yadav , now president of Pragatsheel Samajwadi Party Lohia(PSPL) had to witness such defeat at the hustings.
Though the SP president Akhilesh Yadav and even his uncle Shvipal alleged large scale irregularities and voters were not allowed to cast their franchise, but the election commissioner for the polls, PK Mohanty, claimed that the polling was transparent and smooth.
He said that in 11 places the elections were countermanded due to complaints. SP leaders have also complained about irregularities in Kannauj, the political arena of Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple. But the party managed to win elections in its own borough Etawah.
BJP leadership said that this historic win of the party shows its rising popularity even during the pandemic and how the party had worked for the people.
UP BJP vice-president Vijay Bahadur Pathak said here on Thursday that his party was working from a long time to break this coccus of the SP in the cooperative sector and it has achieved its goal.
” We got the support of the people in this elections as ,the voters were really frustrated with the SP of their activities leading to collapse of several of these cooperative banks,” he said.
“In this elections, in majority of places, the opposition failed to give any candidate which proves the real condition of the opposition parties, who are now accusing the BJP,” Mr Pathak claimed.
The Congress managed a face-saving victory in Jagdishpur which is part of Amethi, the pocket borough of the Gandhi family, where Rahul Gandhi lost to Smriti Irani in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Among other prestigious seats won by opposition parties were in Varanasi, Ballia, Ghazipur and Etawah.
PSPL president Shivpal Yadav, who has been the chairman of the bank for three terms since 2005, said that the BJP government brought about changes in the rules which disqualified him.
‘Contesting for chairman’s post for over 2 times barred’The new rule barred anybody from contesting for the chairman’s post for more than twice.
“The new rule is designed to keep the opposition at bay and is undemocratic,” he said.
The UPCLDB has 323 branches all over the state and one delegate is elected from each branch every five year. The delegates then elect their director at the level of commissionerate and the directors vote for their chairman and vice-chairman who control the powerful chain of rural banks which grants loans to farmers on long-term and short- term basis for their agricultural inputs and to increase their income.
