Maharashtra CM’s close aide Dable loses DBA prez poll

NAGPUR: In a big jolt to saffron parties ahead of next year’s elections, candidates backed by them lost the all-important District Bar Association (DBA) polls on Saturday. State BJP Legal Wing secretary and hot favourite

Uday Dable

lost to Kamal Satuja by a big margin of 275 votes for the president’s post.

Vivek Kolte, backed by Adhivakta Parishad for the post of secretary, lost narrowly to Nitin Deshmukh by 24 votes.

As per lawyers, the third candidate for president’s post, Manoj Sable, could garner just 629 votes after leading in the initial round.

Lawyers claimed that Uday Dable’s defeat is a big setback to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who has been his close friend since college days. A day before the polling day, all candidates fielded by BJP’s Legal Wing were tipped as favourites following backing from all dominant groups. Adhivakta Parishad also backed candidates supported by BJP’s Legal Wing.

The pre-election party thrown for Dable at a well-known club witnessed maximum turnout as compared to other events organized by other contestants.

On the other hand, a soft-spoken Satuja was supported by a strong group led by former DBA president Sudeep Jaiswal. He then got an unexpected support from well-known lawyer Shreerang Bhandarkar having huge following of young lawyers.

Satuja’s supporters, led by Jaiswal, celebrated with Gulal and traditional band outside the court’s premises.

Even for the secretary’s post, Kolte was tipped to be favourite, but was expected to get a tough fight from Ranjan Deshpande, who had a backing from many dominant groups.

Nitin Deshmukh walked away with the honours in a nail-biting finish. While Deshmukh polled 929 votes, Kolte got 904 and Deshpande was at third position with 680 votes.

For the two single posts of treasurer and library in-charge, it was cakewalk for the winners. While Anil Gulhane crushed any competition for treasurer’s post by garnering 1,645 votes, his nearest rival Nitin Gandhi could muster only 884.

For library in-charge’s post, Kirtikumar Kadu trounced nearest rival Vicky Tambe by 884 votes by grabbing 1,501 votes.

The counting for other posts of vice-president, joint secretaries and executive committee members was underway till filing of this report in the evening.

The election panel under Kishor Ambilwade and his team of Shailesh Gadhia, Abdul Bashir and others were working hard to declare the results. Even before the start of counting, the candidates and their supporters reached the venue in morning and were checking with the poll panel members. Adequate security arrangements were made to prevent any untoward incident.

Social media was abuzz with election results. While the panel members announced winners for all important posts of president and secretary due to less number of candidates, it took them a long time to count votes for vice-president and joint secretary’s posts, due to large number of contestants.

Shashank Chaubey and Vivek Karade were elected for the two posts of vice-president.

They had planned to take counting for nine posts of executive committee members at the last, as highest number of 28 candidates had contested, thus making the process very complicated and tedious.

(With inputs from Abhijeet Tiwari)

How candidates fared in

DBA polls

?

# PRESIDENT:

1) Kamal Satuja — 1,478

2) Uday Dable — 1,203

3) Manoj Sable — 629

# SECRETARY:

1) Nitin Deshmukh — 929

2) Vivek Kolte — 904

3) Ranjan Deshpande — 680

4) Sushil Kalyani — 409

5) Mangesh Moon — 311

# TREASURER:

1) Anil Gulhane — 1,645

2) Nitin Gandhi — 884

3) Tarun Parmar — 516

4) Sagarika Pathak — 227

# LIBRARY-IN-CHARGE:

1) Kirtikumar Kadu — 1,501

2) Vicky Tambe — 617

3) Sharad Panpalia — 438

4) Nitesh Samundre — 354

5) Mangala Warke — 300