Elections at the Karnataka State Federation of Persons with Disabilities
Today, the 17th Sep 2006, was a historic day for the Karnataka State Federation of Persons with Disabilities.
The federation is almost 6 years and is a platform for persons with disabilities from the different districts of Karnataka to share information/ knowledge and take up issues to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities.
The federation has established links with district level federations from 6 to 8 districts in Karnataka.
The district level federations have been very active but due to various reasons the coordination of the federation at the centre was not strong enough. On an average only 13-18 members out of the total 29 members in the executive committee were part of the federation meetings on a regular basis.
However, we as the members of the die-hard group of members called for a general body meeting today (17th Sep 2006) held at Bangalore. And one of the agenda was to re-constitute the office bearers of the Federation as a strategy to revive our federation.
It is the process of today which I would like to highlight in my note -
A total of 45 persons with disabilities from 8 districts of Karnataka were present and this included 13 of the 29 executive committee members and others were persons with disabilities who were interested to be part of the federation.
The first step was an opportunity for the members from the district federation to discussion on the issues that greatly affected their lives - some of which included - difficulty for persons with disabilities in Kolar district to get their medical certificate as the District Surgeon was available only one day in a week, where they would only assess 10 persons with disabilities - and the people had to wait for another week before they could get the certificate. In Koppal District as there are no doctors a private doctor from a neighboring district is volunteering to be available at the District Hospital one day in a week to assess for medical certificate. One member reported that none of the Government schools in 60 wards of Bangalore city had a toilet that could be used by children with disabilities and about the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
These interactions set the platform for the selection new members for the executive committee. 16 people who were present volunteered and joined with the 13 existing executive committee members – and the total membership in the executive committee now stands at 29.
From the executive committee, nominations for the following office bearers of the federation were called for -
1. President
2. Vice President
3. Secretary
4. Joint Secretary
5. Treasurer
We had 2 contestants for each of the above mentioned posts.
During lunch, the contestants had an opportunity to campaign and a small team took charge of conducting the process of election which included writing ballot papers and setting up the process of a free and fair election.
After lunch, each of the contestants was given an opportunity for delivering a small speech of what they would do if they were elected as members of office bearers of the federation.
This was followed by the process where the 29 members of the executive committee exercised their franchise and voted for the new office bearers.
The result –
1. President – Mr. Kachvi from Haveri District
2. Vice President – Mr. Vijaykumar from Hoskote, Bangalore Rural District
3. Secretary – Mr. Ramanathan, Bangalore Urban District
4. Joint Secretary – Ms. Devikala, Kolar District
5. Treasurer – Ms. Hanumakshi, Koppal District
The new office bearers gave a short speech thanking the members for electing them and have promised to work toward strengthening the federation and taking it to greater heights.
Documented by: C. Mahesh, Outgoing President of the Karnataka State Federation of Persons with Disabilities, 17th Sep 2006, Bangalore