The RWA elections are just over. As expected, one team won and one lost. It was as fair an election as could be expected from any Govt. appointed election officer.
Being personally a contestant and having lost, my ask would be to do a deep dive to find the reasons. That may take time and should involve multiple sharp minds for a balanced analysis. But an immediate answer is also being sought as to why we lost. Anti-incumbency is the best cover. Complacency? a little uncomfortable to admit. Arrogance? well NO-NO, hmmm… no way, hmmm… surely not us. So, while the sharper minds are looking to unravel the truth, I wish to share some personal observations on the build-up to the election.
The fact remains that the election was not declared within the tenure of the last MC. We can debate till the cows come home on who was responsible, the MC or a few people opposed to it. Those few people who just 10 to 12 days before the AGM (with an agenda to nominate an Election Officer from within), wrote a letter to DR (Meerut) to get the election conducted by his appointed officer only? The fact remains that an AGM was not held after the Statutory Audit of accounts of 2022-23. Is it legal or illegal for a Society, which has no equity shareholders like a Company, to file the returns without the approval of the AGM? Again, unfortunately, the different voters will accept the line thrown out to them depending upon who is telling them, and not on what is being told. Sad, but true. The fact is that voters did not know before the elections that the MC had almost doubled the bank account of the RWA from nearly Rs.13 lacs that they had inherited to Rs.25 lacs that they were going to hand over. Irrespective of who won. The fact remains that circumstantially a paid employee (designated Manager) of the RWA emerged as the panacea for all basic problems of the residents. So, in effect, the credit for getting problems solved got visibly passed on to the Manager and not to the MC members who worked behind the scenes with various officers in Noida Authority and other service providers. And the fact remains that 2 to 3 months preceding the elections, the entire Noida had unprecedented power disruptions. Due to social media activism, it was kind of concluded that the then-MC was at fault. Same as when photographs of just 2 inches of water on roads during heavy rains were circulated as proof that Sector 39 was facing floods due to the MC’s lack of attention. But then the fact also remains that the MC in position was convincingly beaten at the hustings. Period. No debate on this.
Dr G S Sachdeva won as the President, along with Kuldeep Singh as Vice President, Rahul Jain as General Secretary, M R Gupta as the Treasurer and Farzana and Vinod Tiwary as Executive members. The Block Executives elected are Vinod Awana (A Block), K V Sridhar (B Block), and M S Rathi (C Block),. Tamanjit Chadha (D Block), Deepika Sarna (E Block), Divya Bhasin (F Block), Brijesh Goel (G Block) and Col F B Singh (H Block).
Contesting RWA elections is not about satisfying egos. It is about the will to serve the sector, capability for the respective position and most importantly unending time devoted to this work. A thankless work, where the inner conscious telling you to keep doing the job is more important than a few ‘WhatsApp Yoddhas targeting and ridiculing you. Whenever ego overrides the inner will to serve, we have a tricky situation. It is also a fact that only when any single group has an absolute majority in the MC that it is likely to perform. With the blessings of the Almighty, we have a decisive mandate once again. The 03-11 decision of 2021 is reversed to 11-03. At the end of the day, the voters get the governance that they deserve. For the residents, a well-knit Managing Committee, and one that performs its basic duties for the upkeep of facilities and security, is only what matters. I wish the newly elected team to perform as one such successful team.
