How to go about stealing the golden goose

Lucknow: The cooperative sector is in the sights of the BJP, now that it has secured a huge majority in both the Houses of the UP legislature. This sector has been under the strong grip of the Saifai clan, especially the family of Shivpal Singh Yadav, for many decades. But now the strategy of the saffron camp is to completely eliminate the Shivpal camp’s influence on cooperatives, and it is evidently paying off.

Notably, the cooperative movement started gaining momentum in UP from the ’70s. The cooperative sector contributed a lot in strengthening the hold of the Samajwadi Party in the state. In fact, in the year 1977, Mulayam Singh Yadav became the cooperative minister for the first time and since then the cooperatives in the state were dominated by his supporters.

Later, Mulayam transferred the responsibility of the cooperative sector to his younger brother Shivpal, who handed it over to his son Aditya Yadav aka Ankur.

Aditya has been occupying the post of chairman of UP Cooperative Federation (PCF) for a long time.

The term of the PCF board ended in December last year, but hearing the petition filed by Aditya Yadav, the High Court issued an order to retain him as the chairman till the elections were over.

But now he is on the verge of losing his post. Failure to enroll as a member of the Managing Committee will result in termination of his membership, as it is a mandatory condition to be a member to become the Chairman and Deputy Chairman.

Now, the elections of the board of PCF are going on. For these elections, top officials of the state BJP devised a perfect plan: the responsibility of implementing which is of State Cooperative Minister JPS Rathore. Till now, eleven seats of the fourteen-member PCF board have been grabbed by cooperatives owing allegiance to the saffron camp.

The elections of Chairman and Vice-Chairman will be held on 14th June. Political observers insist that till the previous government of Yogi Adityanath, the BJP’s stand on PSPL chief Shivpal remained relatively soft, but now in the changed scenario, the BJP high command has taken a tough stand. Now the saffron lobby is sure to take complete control of the cooperative sector.