With barely two days remaining for the elections to the 125-year-old Raipur Bar Association, campaigning by candidates had reached a feverish pitch with them leaving no stones unturned to woo the voters.
Established in 1888-89, the Raipur Bar Association conducts polls to elect office-bearers every two years. This is also the first election being conducted to select the new office bearers ever since the court shifted. The campaigning is also being undertaken by the candidates in the old court premises.
The feverish campaigning in both the court premises could be made out from the fact that an introductory programme for all the candidates at the new Bar room was held recently where the candidates had one-to-one interaction with voters.
On the occasion, the candidates reiterated their resolve to fulfil the promises if elected to the Bar Association.
Interestingly, some of the candidates even promised their junior counterparts and women lawyers with a scholarship in the first two three years of their starting practice if voted to the Bar Association.
Some of the other candidates , on the lines of what was recently announced by UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav also promised to offer insurance upto five lakhs on sudden or natural death of the lawyers to their families.
The candidates who are in the fray are—Ashish Kumar Soni, Ramnarayan Vyas and Sanjay Sharma for President , Ragini Pandey, Shailendee Verma, Shamim Rehman and Urvashi Agarwal for Senior Vice President, Ramesh Sahu, Sajyendu Pandya and Shrikant Mishra for Vice President, Brijesh Nath Pandey, Hitendra Tiwari, Pradip Kumar Giri and Pushpendra Parihar for Secretary.
There are seven contestants for male and five for female joint secretaries, Treasurer (4), library Secretary (4) besides 18 contestants for 6 posts of Working Committee members and two female contestants for one post of Working Commitee members.