Jamshedpur, March 9: The polling to the Tata Workers Union (TWU) came up with a surprise result on Monday night. Raghunath Pandey, one of the favorites for the President�s post lost to R Ravi Prasad by a margin of seventeen votes. Sanjeev Kumar Choudhary was elected the Deputy President of the Union.
R Ravi Prasad bagged 117 votes, former president Raghunath Pandey got 91 votes while third front�s Bhagwan Singh had to be content with 6 votes.
In the highly competitive election for the post of Deputy President, Sanjeev Kumar Choudhary bagged 108 votes while SK Singh got 106 votes, losing out the battle for just two votes.
For the post of General Secretary BK Dinda was a clear winner as he bagged 78 votes while his rivals Sailesh Kumar Singh and Arun got 69 and 67 votes respectively.
Four Vice-Presidents included Bhagwan Singh, Arvind Pandey, Sivesh Verma and Sahnawaz Alam. Satish Kumar Singh, KK Singh and Dharmendra Upadhyay were elected Assistant secretaries while Prabhat Lal was the Treasurer of the Union. 14729 employees of the steel major elected 214 committee members who, in turn, selected 11 office-bearers – president, general secretary, deputy president, treasurer, four vice-presidents and three assistant secretaries.
Former President of the union PN Singh was seen the door after 117 elected members of the union voted against Co-Option while 96 voted for it. The future of PN Singh to return as the President was on the hands of elected members and 108 had to vote for Co-option then only Singh could have returned.
But the opposition faction helped 117 votes against it making it difficult for Singh to return. The much-awaited biennial election of Tata Workers’ Union (TWU) held on Monday amid tight security inside the company premises after Jharkhand High Court ordered the East Singhbhum District Administration to hold the polls under its supervision.
DC Dr. Amitabh Kaushal and SSP Amol V Homkar were present at the polling booths set up inside the Tata Steel company premises on Monday. Returning officer and additional deputy commissioner of East Singhbhum Sunil Kumar accompanied by deputy commissioner Amitabh Kaushal, senior superintendent of police Amol V. Homkar and Dhalbhum SDO Prem Ranjan made several visit of different booths as well as Steelinium Hall, the counting centre to take stock of the election.
DC was the active of the lot and was seen strolling at booths, counting venues and also at media galleries to take a stock of the situation and stood at the entrance of the counting hall as police officers were checking the candidates entering the venue. Cigarettes, pan, tobacco, mobile and other items were recovered from the candidates which were banned. The first two hours from 8 in the morning saw the maximum voter turnout were employees were seen standing ion queue to cast their votes.
There are as many as 672 candidates in the fray for the biennial polls. Altogether, there will 161 booths across 41 different locations. Of the 41 locations 36 were set up inside the premises while remaining 5 locations were at TMH, Tube Division, Jusco premises, CRM Bara and Corporate House.
After the polls were concluded peacefully at 1 pm the election officials submitted their boxes which were kept under high security at Steelenium Hall. Just before the counting began at 3 pm more than 600 candidates were allowed to enter the venue with full proof inspection of their possession. The first result came within 30 minutes of counting and supporters started shouting slogans and were dealt by the District Commissioner.
Amid tight security the counting agents announced the name of the winning candidate�s one after another. Some of the candidates who didn�t enter the counting hall before 3 pm were made to wait outside and to their luck all the four candidates won from their respective constituency. The winning candidates inside the hall were not allowed to go out and had to wait long to celebrate the occasion.
One of the candidates came out and started playing with colours with his supporters and was later reprimanded by DC Amitabh Kaushal. The counting for constituency 1 to 76 was held in first phase while second phase witnessed constituency 77 to 152. Established in 1920, the TWU has been represented by iconic leader Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in the early years of its formation.