Alleging that the election officer appointed to conduct election for the post of directors to the A.A. 399, Chennimalai Industrial Weavers’ Co-operative Society Limited (Chencoptex) had committed irregularities to favour the ruling party, members staged a demonstration in front of the society on Friday.
The election was scheduled to be held on October 14 for the post of seven directors and nominations were accepted till October 7 while scrutiny took place on October 8. Members, N. Nagappan and C. Kannusamy, along with four others filed their nominations with election officer Cheran. But they said that acknowledgement for filing nominations were not given to them and despite many requests, the officer failed to give it to them. They said the issue was taken up with the Assistant Director for Handloom and Weaving, who promised to solve the issue. But on Thursday evening, a list of contestants was displayed in the notice board in which their names were missing.
The members said the officer did not issue acknowledgement slips, failed to inform them for scrutiny and also released the list without their names. “The officer had committed a murder of democracy,” they said and wanted their names included in the list before conducting the elections.
S. Chinnasamy, State secretary of AITUC, S. Ponnusamy, Treasurer, Erode District Weaver’s Cooperative Association, and members of various trade unions participated in the demonstration. A petition was submitted to societies Special Officer K. Natarajan while a letter was also sent to the Commissioner, Tamil Nadu State Co-Operative Societies Election Commission, Chennai, urging action.