MARGAO: Since the last many years, the Administrator of Communidades followed a practice wherein once the elections of the Comunidades are announced, no transfer of shares was allowed till the end of elections. This year, the Administrator of Comunidades issued an order stopping this practice.
According to officials in the Office of the Administrator, there was no provision in the Code of Comunidade which banned share transfer before the election. They informed that there were representations made by some shareholders asking them to stop the practice. However, they were not able to show the Order because the staffer in charge was on leave.
The decision has divided the Comunidade fraternity. In Comunidade elections, every shareholder gets only one vote no matter how many shares he owns. Those against the decision say that the people who lobbied for allowing the share transfer want to increase the number of votes in their favour and are transferring their shares to their supporters.
“As we near the elections, we can tell how many shareholders would come for voting. So, if one candidate calculates that he needs 20 votes to win, he can transfer 25 of his shares to 25 people and close the gap,” explained a member of the South Goa Comunidade Forum.
“There are some people in the Comunidade who have created slums on Comunidade land and are collecting huge sums as rent from migrants. During the elections, don’t be surprised if these migrants staying illegally on comunidade land come to vote. Because of this, the votes of genuine gaonkars and shareholders will get diluted,” the member said.
Those who support the decision say that the rule preventing share transfer before the election is arbitrary and is not mentioned in the Code of Comunidade.
A few days ago the South Goa Comunidade Forum had objected to the Administrator’s decision of scheduling the elections of all the Comunidades under the zone over just 5 Sundays. Since the elections are conducted in a meeting and all members have to be present, if their vote has to be counted, this prevents members from voting in other Comunidades which have scheduled their election at the same time.
“The two decisions might create a situation where many veterans in the Comunidade system who own shares in multiple village Comunidades won’t be able to vote. Whereas there will be a whole new breed of dummy voters to fill the void and control the Comunidades,” a comunidade president said.
