PANAJI
Candidates known to be aligned to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have emerged victorious in the elections to the Board of Directors of the Goa State Cooperative Bank.
Interestingly, former minister Prakash Velip, who was in the vortex of the recent upheaval in the Scheduled Tribe community which erupted in the wake of the sacking of Govind Gaude from the Cabinet, was defeated in this election.
Velip lost to Shrikant Naik in the Consumer Cooperative Societies category.
Elections were held on Sunday and the counting took place on Tuesday at the Cooperative Bhavan in Curti-Ponda.
The first meeting after the installation of the newly elected Board of Directors is expected to be held within a month where the new chairman will be elected.
Pandurang Kurtikar, who was elected from the general individual category and is said to be close to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, is tipped for the Bank's top post.
Kurtikar hails from Kothambi-Pale which is in Sawant's Sanquelim constituency and Sawant had participated in the election, casting his vote on Sunday.
"Majority of the candidates who have won are pro-government. The candidate for the post of Chairman will be decided in the meeting of the newly elected directors," said Vinayak Narvekar, who himself has won the election from the employees service cooperatives category.
Four directors, including Shripad Parab and Prabhakar Gaonkar, had already been elected unopposed earlier.
Although there were no official panels contesting this election, pro-BJP and government contestants are said to have canvassed for each other.
Candidates declared winners after counting on Tuesday: Krishna Kudnekar, Vitthal Vernekar, Vinayak Narvekar (all from Employees Service Cooperative Society category); Priya Tanksali and Shaba Desai (from Salaried Service Cooperative Society category); Shrikant Naik (from Consumer Cooperative Society category); Vijaykant Gaokar (from Dairy Co-operative Societies category); Dadi Naik (from Housing Cooperative Society category) and Pandurang Kurtikar (Individual Shareholders category).
