Breaking the Samajwadi Party dominance, the Bharatiya Janata Party supported candidates swept the Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Land Development Bank (UPCLDB) polls, winning 281 seats unopposed out of the 311 for which elections were held recently and the results were declared on Wednesday night.
The opposition backed candidates won 30 seats while polling for 11 seats was countermanded due to complaints.
It was SP which held sway in the cooperative land development banks. The beginning was made in 1977 when Mulayam Singh Yadav, as co-operative minister, held a stranglehold over the co-operative movement. His younger brother, Shivpal Singh Yadav, maintained that supremacy and even during the Bahujan Samaj Party regime between 2007 and 2012, the SP maintained its hold.
It is the first time that the SP has faced such a humiliating defeat in the UPCLDB polls. SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav has alleged large-scale irregularities in the polling, saying that voters were not allowed to exercise their franchise.
“The officials were working as BJP workers and helped the ruling party to sweep the elections,” Akhilesh said.
The election commissioner for the polls, PK Mohanty, however claimed that the polling was transparent and smooth. He said that in 11 places the elections were countermanded due to complaints.
The SP leaders complained about irregularities in Kannauj. The commission looked into the complaint and solved it. “The SP has won elections in Kannauj and Etawah,” Mohanty said.
The BJP leadership said that this historic win of the party showed its rising popularity even during the coronavirus pandemic and how the party had worked for the welfare of the people.
BJP state vice-president Vijay Bahadur Pathak said here on Thursday that his party was working for a long time to break the caucus of the SP in the cooperative sector and it had achieved its goal.
“We got the support of the people in this election as the voters were frustrated with the SP and their activities leading to the collapse of many of these cooperative banks,” he said.
“In this election, at majority of places, the opposition failed to field any candidate which shows how decimated the opposition is but they are accusing the BJP,” Pathak said.
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 BJP’s Smriti Irani in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
The prestigious seats won by opposition parties are in Varanasi, Ballia, Ghazipur and Etawah.
Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) (PSPL) president Shivpal Yadav, who has been the chairman of the bank for three terms since 2005, said that the BJP government brought many changes in the law which went in its favour. “The new law says one cannot contest for the chairman’s post if he has won it twice. The new rule barred many strong candidates. 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.
