The Retail Oushadha Forum (ROF), a recently floated exclusive body of medicine retailers in Kerala appears to win a thumping victory in the unit level elections being held to elect new office bearers for the All Kerala Chemists and Druggists Association (AKCDA).

Election in Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Idukki districts will be held on 9, 10 and 13 of this Month, said, Advocate A Balagopal, the court appointed commissioner for the election process. He said the election is going on smoothly and state councillors will be elected after 13th.

From the results so far announced, all the wholesalers represented the official group of AKCDA were suffered defeats in the respective seats in all the districts.

When results of the 70 per cent of the elections came out, it became clear that the state unit of the All India Organisation of Chemists & Druggists (AIOCD) will get new office-bearers from the ROF leaving zero chance for the wholesalers. It is sure that ROF will capture the organisation with a simple majority. The group won 187 seats for district councillors out of the 310 results declared so far.

The major defeat occurred to the official panel was at the Eranakulam north seat where the leader and taskmaster of AKCDA in Kerala, Antony Tharian suffered the worst defeat, a thing that was unexpected for him and even for his rivals. A confidante of J S Shinde, the AIOCD national president, Tharian was an aspirant of the general secretary post in Kerala, but secured only 48 votes. All the members of his opposite panel won their seats with more number of votes.

The election is yet to complete. In Pathanamthitta, Kollam, Alappuzha and Idukki districts it will be completed by next week. However, the retailers’ forum has already got adequate number of district councillors to elect their state council members, said R Sanal Kumar, state convener of the Forum.

The official panel, led by the former AIOCD president AN Mohan and the AKCDA general secretary, Antony Tharian, got lead in Kannur, Kozhikodu and Palakkadu districts. Kottayam district has unanimously elected all the candidates of the retail forum. In Kollam, out of the total 36 seats, election will be conducted only in three seats as candidates in most of the seats were elected unanimously. The official group got five and ROF won 28 seats without voting. Election to the remaining three seats will be held on June 9.

The only solace received to the Tharian-Mohan combine was their results from the two districts in the north, Kannur and Kozhikodu.

Reacting to his big defeat at Ernakulam north seat, Antony Tharian said the retailers jointly tried to defeat the wholesalers. No candidate in his panel won the election. “It was a deliberate attempt to sideline me from the organisation. I had not expected this,” Tharian added.