The ISKCON Bangalore group of temples elected its
new Governing Council for the next three year period. The election was
conducted recently in ISKCON’s farm in Mahadevapura near Mysore. The
elections were conducted as per the Direction of Management issued by Founder-Acharya of ISKCON, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada on July 28th 1970.
In Direction of Management Srila Prabhupada states:
"The purpose of
the Governing Body Commission is to act as the instrument for the
execution of the Will of His Divine Grace. And further,
1. The GBC
oversees all operations and management of ISKCON, as it receives
direction from Srila Prabhupada and His Divine Grace has the final
approval in all matters.
2. His Divine
Grace will select the initial 12 members of the GBC. In the succeeding
years the GBC will be elected by a vote of all Temple Presidents who
will vote for 8 from a ballot of all Temple Presidents, which may also
include any secretary who is in charge of a temple. Those 8 with the
greatest number of votes will be members for the next term of GBC. Srila
Prabhupada will choose to retain four commissioners. In the event of
Srila Prabhupada’s absence, the retiring members will decide which four
will remain.
3. The commissioners will serve for a period of 3 years and they may be re-elected at the end of this period.
The election was conducted by an Election
Commissioner, Sri Gangadharappa, a retired IAS officer who has served in
various capacities in the Governments of India and Karnataka for over
thirty years. The election process involved two phases. In the first
phase, the existing Governing Council members selected three out of ten
among themselves to remain in the Council for the next three year term.
The three who were selected in this stage were Sri Madhu Pandit Dasa,
Sri Chanchalapathi Dasa and Sri Jai Chaitanya Dasa. In the second phase
the retiring Governing Council members(apart from the selected three)
and the Temple Presidents’ Body which totaled to twenty two members
elected from among themselves the balance seven members. The top seven
members who received the highest votes were elected as the remaining
Governing Council members.
The Governing Council members who were elected after this process for the next three year term are:
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| Sri Amitasana Dasa- Assam- Serving in ISKCON as a missionary since 1992 |
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| Sri Chanchalapathi Dasa- Karnataka- Serving in ISKCON as a missionary since 1984 |
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| Sri Jai Chaitanya Dasa- Kerala- Serving in ISKCON as a missionary since 1984 |
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| Sri Madhu Pandit Dasa- Tamil Nadu- Serving in ISKCON as a missionary since 1981 |
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| Sri Rajiv Lochana Dasa- Haryana- Serving in ISKCON as a missionary since 1994 |
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| Sri Ratnangada Govinda Dasa- Karnataka- Serving in ISKCON as a missionary since 1997 |
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| Sri Satya Gaura Chandra Dasa- Andrapradesh- Serving in ISKCON as a missionary since 1996 |
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| Sri Stoka Krishna Dasa- Karnataka- Serving in ISKCON as a missionary since 1989 |
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| Sri Suvyakta Narasimha Dasa- Tamil Nadu- Serving in ISKCON as a missionary since 1998 |
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| Sri Vasudev Keshav Dasa- West Bengal- Serving in ISKCON as a missionary since 1996 |
The new Council will oversee the functioning of
over twenty temples in various parts of India like Bangalore, Mysore,
Mangalore, Bellary, Chennai, Hubli, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur,
Vrindavan, Guwahati, Bhillai, Puri, Bhubaneswar, and many more. The new
Governing Council will serve for a term of three years from now, after
the completion of which a new council will be elected.
Each of the Governing Council members will oversee
a zone consisting of many temples. The zonal assignments are slated to
be done shortly in the next Council meeting.
