Cooperative societies can’t hold polls till Dec 31: Govt

The state government, which recently eased election rules for cooperative housing societies, has now thrown a spanner in their works by declaring they will not be

The state government, which recently eased election rules for cooperative housing societies, has now thrown a spanner in their works by declaring they will not be able to conduct elections till December 31, 2019.

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A government resolution (GR) in this effect was issued on Saturday. This decision will affect thousands of housing societies across the state which were stated to elect their managing committees this year.

The state government had recently eased rules allowing any housing society having less than 250 members to conduct polls on their own.

The draft on the procedure to conduct the elections and various other rules regarding these elections are still to be finalised. In view of the Model Code of Conduct which will shortly come into force due to the upcoming Assembly polls, this is expected to take more time.

According to advocate Vinod Sampat, who specialises in real estate, this has disrupted the plans of several societies. “Thousands of societies had started their election process and now this has to be stopped midway due to the arbitrary order of the state government,” Sampat said.

The state government last month had incorporated a separate section 154 (b) in Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act 1960 allowing housing societies to conduct their polls without the participation of the Maharashtra State Cooperative Election Authority. This was welcomed by all housing societies.

Ramesh Prabhu, who heads the Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association (MSWA), an association of residents of cooperative societies, said, “The elections have not been held for a long time despite the managing committee completing their five years. A few months back, it was due to the Lok Sabha polls and now it is the Assembly polls.”