Govt decision to affect 60 netas, including Ajit Pawar, Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, Rajani Patil and Dilip Deshmukh
The government has decided to include a section in the cooperatives Act to prevent members of boards of directors of cooperative banks responsible for financial crises of their respective institutions from contesting elections.
The state Cabinet on Tuesday gave its nod for bringing out a government resolution (GR) to prevent such directors, who are mainly political biggies involved in irregularities in cooperative banks, from holding such top positions in any such institution. To ensure this, a new section of (3A) would be added to the section 73C A of the Maharashtra State Cooperatives Act 1960.
The decision could affect the prospects of 60 politicos, including Ajit Pawar, Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, Rajani Patil, Dilip Deshmukh, Amarsinh Pandit, Anand Adsul, Pandurang Fundkar, Yashwant Gadakh, Vijay Vadettiwar, Dilip Sopal and Ramprasad Bordikar. All the 60 names were read out by Patil himself in the assembly during the winter session in Nagpur.
All these leaders, who include a handful of netas from the BJP and the Shiv Sena, would be at the receiving end. Most of the Congress-NCP leaders are heading the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank, also called the apex bank, as well as most of the district cooperative banks. The apex bank and 31 district cooperative banks are facing financial crises. Administrators have been appointed for most of these banks and inquiries into irregularities to the tune of thousands of crores of rupees are underway.
Calling them the 'Golden Gang' of Congress-NCP leaders, Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana president Raju Shetti said this gang had looted the cooperative sector for their political purpose. Speaking to dna, Shetti said that these people had created a vicious circle; they started their own cooperatives, granted loans and ensured that they were not repaid. Shetty alleged that it was the same set of people who bought the properties of the cooperatives during the auction, which put the district banks as well as the apex bank in trouble.
Terming the government decision as politically motivated and autocratic, the Congress said that the move would not stand in the court since it was not in conformity with the existing cooperatives laws.
On the other hand, the government has made it clear that the decision stemmed from directions of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Minister for cooperation Chandrakant Patil told the media that RBI was following up on this issue and insisting that such members from the board of directors be prevented from getting elected again to the board. He said if such people were elected again, banks could never improve their performance and that there would be problems in recovery of bad debts.
If the very director responsible for pushing his/her bank into a financial crisis was elected again, s/he would not allow a proper follow-up of the judicial process to happen, Patil said.
Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil said the government has every right to conduct inquiry within the ambit of the existing cooperatives laws. If at all the government thought that the existing laws were not enough, it could go for amending the same, he added.
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