BHUBANESWAR: After the landslide victory in the panchayat and urban local body (ULB) polls, the ruling BJD has now turned its attention to the elections to primary cooperative societies to be held in two phases in June. Addressing senior leaders of the party virtually on Monday, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said that the election is very important for the BJD and has to be fought seriously.
Election to the primary cooperative societies was last held in 2015. It has been delayed by two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.The Cooperation department has notified June 19 and 26 for the first phase of elections for members of primary cooperative societies. Elections will be held in 7,076 primary cooperative societies with a membership of over 30 lakh. Elections to the central and apex cooperatives will be held in the next phase.
The Chief Minister who discussed strategy for the polls with the party leaders also announced a seven-member committee headed by legislator Pratap Deb for election management. He said that besides overall monitoring and supervision of the entire election, the State-level committee will coordinate with districts.
District-level committees have been formed to monitor elections at the primary level. Four zonal committees have also been constituted to coordinate with the district committees and observers.
Naveen asked the State committee to take review of the zonal and district committees once a week till primary and apex level elections are over. He asked the committee to submit weekly reports regarding preparedness, progress and prospects for his perusal.Stating that results of the panchayat and ULB elections have become benchmark of BJD’s political strength, the Chief Minister asked the leaders to strategically utilise the party’s success to have much better results than the last time in apex, central and primary level elections.