Idea of virtual polls fails to click with most DBA candidates

Ludhiana: At a time when 15 candidates contesting Ludhiana’s District Bar Association (DBA) elections have already opposed the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana’s proposal to conduct online elections for bar associations, a nominee for president’s post for DBA is planning to file a petition in the Punjab and Haryana high court against the move.
On June 27, 15 candidates for DBA elections had passed a resolution “opposing the proposal” of the Bar Council to hold online election.
Harjot Singh Harikay, who had been vice-president of DBA twice and is now in the fray for the post of president, said, “We don’t trust the online system, so 90% of contesting candidates of Ludhiana DBA have opposed bar council’s move. They have already sent the resolution to the Bar Council of India.”
He said in view of the pandemic, the elections should not be held as of now and instead the bar council should spend the money to provide monetary help to needy advocates. Harjot said he was planning to move the high court in the next few days.
Bar council chairman advocate Karanjit Singh had earlier sought updated list of voters from the bar associations of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh to conduct the poll online. He had earlier claimed that a majority of the associations have provided the updated list of their members. Meanwhile, local election authorities said that they don’t have information on when elections will be held.
Assistant returning officer (ARO) Lalita Jain said they have already sent the resolution to bar council. She said the bar council had asked for complete list of voters with phone numbers which they have already sent.
Members of the bar said the bar council has mooted the idea in view of social distancing norms due to Covid-19 related threat but the online system has both merits and demerits.
Box: Polls were deferred
The elections of office-bearers — president, vice-president, secretary, joint secretary, finance secretary and executive members — of the District Bar Association (DBA) were to be held on April 3, but were first postponed to April 17 and later indefinitely following lockdown.
Box: Candidates in fray
President’s post | Harjot Singh Harikay, Gurkirpal Singh Gill, AnkurGhai
Vice-president | Karan Verma, Parvinder Singh, Rajnesh Mahajan
Secretary | Gagandeep Singh Saini, Gurmukh Singh, Sukhwinder Bhatia
Joint secretary | Davinder Singh Grewal, Sachin Bawa
Finance secretary | Gautam Rishi, Yadwinder Singh Sadiora
Executive members | Amit Gupta, Dinesh Kumar, Gagandeep Bhatia, Karan Singh Thakur, Sagar Lakshya, Sanal, Suman Kumari, Sunita