SBE Northern Railway

northern railways election
NRMU, URMU get recognition
Charanjit Singh Teja
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 2
The result of the Railway employees’ unions proved to be a happy ending for both the unions as the Northern Railways Men's Union (NRMU) and Uttariya Railway Mazdoor Union (URMU) succeed to get recognition from the Railway board.
Northern Railways Men's Union got 47.8 per cent votes and Uttariya Railway Mazdoor Union 44 per cent votes in the union elections.
There are six separate unions, which participated in Northern Railway selections. These elections were conducted by the Railway Board to recognise the unions. As per the criteria adopted by the Railway Board, a union has to get 35 per cent votes of total polled votes in elections to get recognition. Last elections were conducted in year 2008 in which the NRMU only succeeded to get recognition from the board. There are around 1. 35 lakh voters in the Northern Railway in which 19,000 voters are from Ferozepur Division. As many as 3,800 voters are from Ludhiana who have right to vote for the union.
The result came with a relief for the railway police, as the situation was reportedly tense in the Ludhiana station due to the clash, which was reported on April 27 between the activists of NRMU and URMU. To avoid any clash among the activists of separate unions, Railway Police conducted a flag March and deputed the force on Railway station premises.
In a clash between the NRMU and URMU activists, five activists including Daljit Singh, Divisional Secy NRMU, Ferozpur, were allegedly injured by the URMU activist on April 27, when they were coming back after submitting the election ballet boxes at Ferozepur Division.
One of the NRMU activists was admitted to a hospital has slipped into coma due to serious injuries. The police has registered a case against eight URMU activists.