Six new faces, four old guards enter senate

VADOADARA: Six new faces have made entry into M S University’s senate body on Monday following as counting of votes polled during Sunday’s elections for the registered graduates’ category seats.
At the same time, three sitting senators managed to retain their seats in the university’s highest body.
Amid high-drama and hi-tech campaigning, elections for the 11 seats of the registered graduates’ category were held on Sunday after three sitting senators had won uncontested ahead of the polls.
University’s senate body has 14 seats in the registered graduates category representing each of the 14 faculties. Result of one seat representing Faculty of Commerce were not officially declared till late evening following a directive from Gujarat High Court.
The six faces new face in senate body include Vinod Patel representing Faculty of Performing Arts, Hasmukh Vaghela representing Faculty of Pharmacy; Ketul Dashadia representing Faculty of Fine Arts; Abhilasha Kumari representing Faculty of Family and Community Sciences; Kapil Joshi representing Faculty of Social Work and Mitesh Shah representing Faculty of Medicine.
All these candidates had contested for the first time and have won the polls.
The old guard who won the poll battle include Hemal Mehta representing Faculty of Science, Narendra Ravat representing Faculty of Technology and Engineering, Satyen Kulabar representing Faculty of Management Studies and Mehul Lakhani representing Faculty of Law. Apart from Lakhani, who has earlier been a government-nominated senator, the three others are sitting senate member who have been elected for another term.
Old-timer like Dr Prakash Shah, who was contesting from Faculty of Medicine and Dipak Shah, from Faculty of Social Work, had to face defeats from new comers. The duo have served more than three terms as senators.
In terms of vote difference, sitting senator Hemal Mehta won with the highest margin by bagging 817 votes against her closest rival Lalit Patel who bagged 216 votes – a difference of 601 votes.
Similarly, sitting senator Narendra Ravat also won with 785 votes - a margin of 535 votes against his closest rival Ajay Padhye – who bagged 250 votes.
The victory margin was thin at Faculty of Social Work where sitting senator Dipak Shah lost to new comer Kapil Joshi with a difference of just five votes. While Joshi bagged 115 votes, Shah bagged 110 votes even as a third candidate bagged only 20 votes.