Ending uncertainty over holding organisational elections to fill various posts of office-bearers of the All Kerala Chemists & Druggists Association (AKCDA), the court appointed advocate commissioner has announced dates for filing nominations for the primary level election process.

According to Advocate N Balagopal, the election officer-cum-commissioner, the process of organisational election to constitute a 386 member executive committee and 251member general council for the AKCDA will be completed in three months. He said the last date for filing nominations to contest the unit level election is March 12.

The scrutiny will be held on March 14 and 15. The date for the election will be decided after March 15.

The Commission is going ahead with its plan to conduct the election at the earliest as some time ago the Kerala High Court had issued an order directing it to complete the process of election immediately. AKCDA has a total of 227 units functioning in all the 14 districts of the state.

According to sources, there will be three panels to contest the ensuing election.  Besides the official group, two rival factions are likely to field candidates in all the units. There are reports that one of the rival factions, the state wing of the splinter group of All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), the All India Chemists and Druggists Federation (AICDF) may contest the election, and hectic preparations are on to select suitable candidates to be fielded in order to capture the control of the association. For the overall management and control of AKCDA, a faction feud has been going on in the state for the last several years, and for an end to their fight the court had to intervene by appointing a Commission.

In another development, the All Kerala Retail Chemists Forum, a forum floated by a group of retailers who are members of the AKCDA, now plans to field separate panel of candidates to contest the election in all the three phases. A separate meeting of retailers was held in Alappuzha last week to choose the right candidates. Forum secretary A Sanal expressed the hope that his panel could easily capture the control of the association after the election. Recently, the Forum has formed a cooperative society avoiding the wholesalers to start supply of medicines on discounted rates.