Karnavati Club is undergoing elections today, to elect 23 directors to its 30-member board. These elections are a direct contest between the ‘Members Power Panel’ (MPP) and ‘Members Freedom Panel’ (MFP). MPP already has seven directors on the board.
MPP, which swept the Rajpath Club elections last year 27-3, is eyeing a clean majority at Karnavati as well. After defeating the Paresh Dani-led ‘President Panel’ in Rajpath Club in March 2015, MPP defeated the Girish Dani-led panel 7-0 in the August 2015 elections at Karnavati Club. Girish Dani had resigned after the defeat, after serving as president of the club for more than 15 years. Following the defeat, Girish Dani and three other founding members were removed from permanent directorship at an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) in March.MPP was formed on an anti-corruption plank and has taken a slew of measures at Rajpath Club after its takeover, under the new president Jagdish Patel. Recently, the Rajpath Club management suspended 5 members, including Paresh Dani, for alleged scam of Rs 5.52 crores. The issue of corruption for the elections at Karnavati Club has also come up. MFP, which was formed six months ago, wants to promote youth and women in the club. It has fielded two women candidates besides several young members. Two days before voting, MFP suffered a setback after its candidate Vijay Thakkar withdrew his nomination. Both MPP and MFP have not announced names for the post of president ahead of voting. There are 9,800 members in the club. Of these, as many as 809 members cast their votes via e-voting before Tuesday evening. MPP already has seven seats and needs nine more to gain power at the club. MFP needs to win 16 seats to get past the majority mark. If MPP wins, it will control the two most prominent clubs in the city.The club management held its last annual general meeting (AGM) with the current board members on Wednesday morning. The election was declared at the AGM, which lasted for just a few minutes.Justice (Retd) P B Majmudar, who is monitoring the elections, on Wednesday took stock of preparations for voting. The members will have to vote for their choice on all 23 seats or their vote will be invalid.
