Marred by controversy, DBA poll results declared in Nagpur

NAGPUR: The results of elections to Nagpur District Bar Association (DBA) were announced on Saturday. Prakash Jaiswal defeated Vandan Gadkari by a margin of 130 votes to emerge as new president of DBA. For two posts of vice-president, the clear winners were Prashant Bhandekar and Akshay Samarth.
Though marred by controversy, Nitin Telgote was elected as general secretary with a huge margin. Others elected are Neelesh Gaidhane and Shrikant Gaulkar as join secretaries, Nachiketa Vyas as treasurer and Girish Khorgade as library in-charge.Nine executive committee members were also elected.
When election results were announced it was not without a controversy. Shyamnayan Abhyankar, who was contesting for the post of general secretary and lost to Telgote by a margin of 978 votes, claimed that the counting process happened without any transparency. He said, “Regular procedure adopted in counting in DBA election is that committee members open the seal of the ballot boxes in presence of contesting candidate or his representative. This time, it was done in absolutely illegal and non-transparent way as ballot boxes were opened and votes counted in the absence of the candidate.”
He also raised an objection in this regard with election committee, DBA, Nagpur. This objection is also communicated to Chief Justice of India, Chief Justice of Bombay High Court, Administrative Justice of Bombay High Court, chairman of Bar Council of India and chairman of Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa. In the objection paper, he claimed that the entire procedure was illegal and asked for re-election of DBA.
When contacted, chairman, election committee, DBA Nagpur, KB Ambilwade, denied the charges as baseless. He categorically stated that representatives of all the candidates were present and only of Abhyankar was not there. He further said, “As the margin of loss was so high it is the only reason that such objection has been filed.” He claimed that he has been holding election for many years now and never were such complaints raised against his procedure. He also agreed to provide, free of cost, recounting to anyone who feels that the process was unfair or there was an error in counting.