PORVORIM, JULY 16
The Nav Vaibhav Panel, led by Adv Ramakant Khalap, was elected unopposed to the polls at the Mapusa Urban Cooperative Bank of Goa Ltd.
However, the opposition panel led by Appa Teli has condemned the elections stating that Adv Khalap has destroyed the basic fabric of co-operative movement.
On Friday morning, 199 shareholders had gathered for the general body meeting of the bank, which was to witness filing of nominations and subsequent elections of the panel.
It is learnt that 22 members had filed their nominations, of which 13 nominations were rejected. The nominations of the remaining nine members of the Khalap Panel were accepted.
Ramakant Khalap, his son Ashwin, Babuso Hadfadkar, Gurudas Natekar, Jagdish Verekar, Mangaldas Naik, Michael Carasco, Ramesh Pankar and Tulio D’Souza were declared elected.
Addressing a press conference at Mapusa, opposition panel led by Appa Teli alleged that their nominations were rejected on the grounds that they were not attending three consecutive general body meetings, not transacting business of Rs 25,000 in the last financial year and for not having 100 or more shares in the bank.
“Khalap also suddenly brought in three new faces, including his son, who never attended though he had announced openly that the members of the old panel would contest the election,” stated Teli.
Teli further alleged that since the gates were closed at 10.45 am, it indicated that Khalap’s panel had a plan to manipulate the entire elections and return to power by unlawful methods to conceal the actual dealings in the bank.
“Khalap was afraid of the opposition panel and therefore he rigged and manipulated the election to get a backdoor entry in the bank,” alleged Teli.
