Fully complying with the directions of the High Court and leaving no space for further factional feud or rivalry in the organisation, the administrative body of the All Kerala Chemists and Druggists Association (AKCDA) has completed the organisational election and elected new office-bearers for the term 2016-19 on June 22.
The members of the organisation from 14 districts in the state have unanimously elected their representatives to the General Council and to the Executive Committee. The general council members later elected the new state office-bearers for the trade body for next three years.
With no opposite candidates for the first three posts, president, secretary and treasurer, the general council has re-elected A.N. Mohan as the president for the next term also. Thomas Raju will continue as the general secretary and O.M. Abdul Jaleel is the new treasurer.
M. Sasidharan, Hariharaputhran and Venugopal will hold the posts of vice-presidents, and S. Subrahmanian, K.L. Sree Ram and Nazar Arakkal will act as secretaries.
The election was held in the Kochi office of AKCDA on June 22. The tenure of the present committee is to expire on 10th August this year. However, they went for new election as the organisation has been freed from all kinds of controversies or opposition, sources said.
Advocate Saiju Abraham was the returning officer for the election which started at Taluk level in March this year.
Though there was no contest held in the district level and state level elections, in the Taluk level unit elections some members had filed nominations against the official candidates. But they withdrew their papers later.
According to sources, the general secretary of AKCDA during the period in 2009-11, Antony Tharian and his president Abdul Gafoor contested in the unit levels in Kochi and in Wynadu this year , both of them were defeated in the unit itself.
Till three years before, AKCDA had been struggling due to factional feud and business rivalries. But, after the election held in 2013, the new office-bearers made all attempts to sort out the issues of the traders and brought all the members under one umbrella. The president A.N. Mohan gave priority to streamline the activities of the trade body and apprised the court all issues prevailed in the organisation.
“We have solved all problems and conducted the election as per the direction of the court. The election was held in the democratic way and every level it was held unanimously. Even though there were some differences of opinion among members, now we are all together and work jointly for the society and for the traders’ welfare”, he told Pharmabiz.
The executive committee is comprising all district level office-bearers and the nine state office-bearers. In 2013, due to factional feud the election was held under the supervision of a court appointed commissioner.