The Hindu Business Line : IRMA faculty rallies behind Kurien

THE Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) board may have met legally or illegally and "conspired" against Dr Verghese Kurien, but the institute's faculty is solidly behind the `milk-man'.

Both Dr Kurien and the IRMA Director, Prof. K. Prathap Reddy, held separate meetings with the faculty members on Friday, apparently to explain their positions.

If attendance is any indication of support, Dr Kurien won hands down. While Dr Reddy's meeting attracted only seven faculty members, a meeting called by Dr Kurien later in the evening saw a full house.

"Not only the faculty, but the entire staff of IRMA attended the meeting in which Dr Kurien openly asked everyone at the institute what he should do as Prof Reddy has proven to be absolutely incapable of running the show," a faculty member said on condition of anonymity.

The IRMA staff, he said, has even resented the "undue interference of outsiders" such as the National Dairy Development Board Chairperson, Dr Amrita Patel, and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad Director, Prof. Bakul Dholakia, in IRMA's affairs.

Dr Dholakia heads a panel that was appointed on Friday by the board to search for a new IRMA Chairman.

The Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, which is also headed by Dr Kurien, issued a press release in the evening terming the board meeting convened by Prof Reddy as "null and void."

Dr Kurien and his loyalists, who still constitute a majority on the 15-member IRMA board, are now looking at legal options to nullify the proceedings of Friday's board meeting.

The seven members who attended the board meeting on Friday include four members whose term expired in February, Dr Kurien said.

The Civil Court at Anand, however, held that the status quo on the constitution of the board be maintained till April 11 when the matter comes up for hearing again.

Meanwhile, in another twist to the ongoing drama, Mr Sangramsinh Chaudhary, who had filed the petition in the Civil Court of Anand, resigned from the IRMA trust but later withdrew his resignation.

Mr Chaudhary is the Managing Director of the Banaskantha Co-operative Dairy.

"Mr Chaudhary resigned from the IRMA trust but later withdrew as that would have weakened Dr Kurien's case. He is a Kurien loyalist, but he was facing intense pressure from the opposition camp. The issue is settled now," according to a source in Dr Kurien's office.

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