Bhopal, Mar 17: Denying the opposition's allegation of widespread irregularities in the election to cooperative bodies, Madhya Pradesh Cooperative Minister Gopal Bhargava today told the Assembly that the state had never witnessed fairer elections.

Replying to Rs 272 crore budgetary demands of the Cooperative, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection departments, Mr Bhargava said an inquiry will be ordered even on receiving minor complaints.

After Mr Bhargava's reply, the budgetary demands were passed by 68 votes against 16 votes by a division of votes.

Speaker Ishwardas Rohani appealed to opposition members to help in getting the budgetary demands passed by a voice vote.

However, the opposition pressed for a division of votes.

Earlier, the opposition alleged that the rules had been grossly violated during the cooperative elections.

They blamed the BJP of attempting to saffronise the cooperative sector.

Mr Bhargava said a proof of fair elections was that no elections had been cancelled at the Registrar level and small complaints will dealt at the district level itself and elections to 82 cooperative bodies were cancelled.

Intervening during the minister's reply, CPI(M)'s Ramlakhan Sharma said large-scale irregularities took place during the cooperative elections and alleged that the minister's speech was false.

Earlier participating in the debate, former Cooperative Minister Govind Singh, Mr Rajvardhan Singh, Mr Indrajeet Kumar and Mr Satyadeo Katare (all Cong) and Mr Sharma said nominations for cooperative elections had been rejected without any reason.

UNI