Charges Of Bogus Voting Mar Ficci Polls

Frayed tempers and allegations of large scale bogus voting marked the annual elections for the managing committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) here.

The bone of contention was the duplicate proxies issued by some of the member companies in favour of different candidates, which was further compounded by Ficci accepting the delegation fees of Rs 300 per proxy from each of them.

Since a receipt of the delegation fees was an eligibility criterion for voting, the candidates in the associate member category who were denied their right to vote in Wednesdays hustings even after producing the genuine receipts, raised an uproar with some even saying that they would drag the issue to the court.

Ficci officials dismissed the issue as minor mismanagement, with a past president Ajay Kumar Rungta stating that the money would be refunded to those companies in whose case the delegation fees had been paid more than once.

Reacting to the issue, A S Kasliwal, who laid down office as Ficci president on Tuesday said: It is a comedy of errors and much ado about nothing.

Rungta said that elections were stopped mid-way while Kasliwal said that the disputes were settled at the managing committee held later in the day and 15 of the 17 contestants were declared elected.

Asked about the signed ballot papers which found their way out of the election booth, Rungta explained that they were carried away by the candidates after the elections were called off.

The instruction note in the ballot paper also added to the confusion as it said: Members of the committee are to be elected out of 17 candidates to represent associate members. You must cast your vote for not more than 15 candidates.

While the industry sources raised objections as the procedure allows voting for only one candidate instead of 15, the Ficci officials conceded that it was a grave printing error.

The situation turned complicated as one renowned Mumbai-based industrial house nominated proxies both from its headquarters in Mumbai and its office in the Capital. The number of proxies who turned up for the elections also puzzled industry watchers.

Rungta, however, said that under the Ficci constitution, big corporates are allowed up to 20 votes and a maximum annual subscription of up to Rs 40,000 is being collected from them while small companies get to cast one vote only.

Accordingly, the big groups can lay claim to 20 sets of papers in any seminar or managing committee resolution, he said.

The fiasco in the managing committee elections prompted Ficci officials to say that they would opt for better streamlining the next time. I hope a centralised system aided by computerisation would avert such happenings in the future, Rungta said.

Though twenty candidates filed their nominations for the elections, two withdrew the day before polling and one was elected from the seat reserved for the Southern zone.

Ultimately, fifteen members were elected as two more candidates withdrew through mutual agreement after the aborted elections, Kasliwal said.

The seventeen candidates printed in the ballot paper include Anand Agarwal of ABC India Ltd, H M Bangur of Shree Cements, Partha Sadhan Bose of E C Bose and Co, Ramu S Deora of Triochem Products, C I Gandhi of Dolphin Laboratories, Harsh Vardhan Goenka of Ceat LTD and Sanjiv Goenka of Philips Carbon Black.

Harsh Mohan Gupta, Ashok M Kadakia, Vikram Kapur, Suresh A Kotak, K N Memani, Y K Modi, Anil Kumar Ruia, S B Somani, Hemant S Sonawala and Arun K Swarup were the other candidates.