Ludhiana: In a twist to the election arena of the city’s Lodhi Club, now two groups of candidates have been formed which will contest against each other in the elections of the managing committee of the club. Though the date for the elections is yet to be finalised by the deputy commissioner-cum-president of the club, Varinder Sharma, even then the campaigning of both groups, one led by current general secretary Nitin Mahajan, a CA, and the other by current vice-president Dr Gaurav Sachdeva (both contesting for the post of general secretary), has already got intense.
Besides this, in a bid to project their popularity some of the club members contesting elections have started approaching prominent personalities of the city to seek their support and also posting their pictures on social media, along with these personalities to woo the voters. Some of the candidates have also started visiting temples, religious institutions to take blessings from the almighty and also to meet the committee members of these institutes and request them to support their candidature.
Lodhi Club like the Sutlej Club is headed by the serving deputy commissioner of Ludhiana, who is de facto president of both clubs. Except for the president post, a total of nine office-bearers have to be elected for the managing committee of the Lodhi Club, which has a membership base of over 3,000 members. So far, for the post of general secretary Nitin and Gaurav are contesting against each other, for the post of vice-president Kawaljeet Singh Dang and Jogesh Gupta are the candidates, for the post of joint secretary Sarju Ralhan and Amrit Bhambri are contesting against each other.
For the post of mess secretary, Nishit Singhania is contesting against Avinash Jindal, for the post of finance secretary Vishal Mahajan is contesting against Munish Gupta. Besides these posts, for the post of sports secretary Ram Sharma is contesting against Vibhor Garg, for the post of bar secretary Jagatvir Singh Bittu is contesting against Sachin Goyal.
For the post of executive member, Rajiv Gupta is contesting against CM Jindal, while for the post of culture secretary both Mahajan group and Sachdeva group are supporting the same candidate Mohanjeet Kaur and using her photograph in the election poster of their groups. This means that Kaur is likely to be elected unopposed if no other candidate comes forward to stake claim for the culture secretary post.
Meanwhile, as per sources, the annual general meeting of the club is due to take place soon and it is then that the date of the elections will be announced.