Prashant Kuncolienkar is GIBA President

GOA, INDIA: The Goa IT Business Association (GIBA) election was an action packed political drama with intrigue, accusations and suspense all thrown in. Allegations and counter allegations were leveled against certain members—one led by Prashant Kuncolienkar and the other lead by Balkrishna Prabhudesai, the erstwhile President of the association.

Some of the allegations were about indulging in horse trading and two members were debarred from voting. There were also some issues about region-based politics that were raised.

In the closely fought battle, Prabhudesai lost his post to Kuncolienkar by a margin of two votes. Following this, Muzaffar Kadri was elected as VP, Vinayak Nayak as General Secretary, Shrivallabh Sardesai as Treasurer, Gene Lobo as Joint Secretary. Vinay Mhambre, Ashley Delaney and Mandar Manjrekar were elected as Executive Members of the association. The term of the new office bearers will begin on April 1, 2009.

Sources revealed that the issue cropped up during the upgradation of members, which started in the second week of March. GIBA has two kinds of membership—permanent and temporary. Temporary members do not have any voting rights, but can participate in association meetings. However, as per the procedure, a temporary member can become permanent only after paying a certain fee.

After the last date of upgrading membership, which was March 14, around Rs 48,000 was deposited in the account of the association in cash to get permanent membership of 12 people. A source said that this was allegedly paid by outgoing President Prabhudesai, who wanted these people to vote him into retaining his post of President.

On the other hand, the outgoing office bearers rejected the upgradation applications of two temporary members, for certain reasons. But after a lot of debate the said people were allowed to vote. What's noteworthy is that Prabhudesai also lost by a margin of two votes.

When contacted, Prabhudesai refuted all the charges. “Why would I pay to upgrade the membership of 12 members? If such is the case then I would have paid for 20 members and won,” he shot back. The outgoing President lamented that the allegation leveled against him was the result of deterioration in the level of politics in GIBA, in the last few years. He claimed that people were divided on the geographies of South and North Goa.

“Due to this low level of politics, certain decisions I had taken for the interest of the community were not supported by a group of people. I think rather than fighting amongst ourselves, we should stand together and fight for our common interest. Whatever be the circumstances, I want GIBA as an association to grow to an extent where it can safeguard the interest of channel community against national distributors and vendors,” added Prabhudesai.

When contacted, Kuncolienkar, the newly elect President said, “Now we all have to come together, and work for the betterment of the channel community, which is fighting a battle of survival in this time of slowdown.”