LAHORE: Rao Sami of the Hamid Khan-led Professional Group was elected president of the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) in the annual election held on Saturday.

Sami defeated Syed Farhad Ali Shah of the Independent Group, also known as the late Asma Jahangir group, in a one-on-one contest with a big margin.

The voter turnout was over 50 per cent as 6,917 out of 12,004 members cast their votes. Sami bagged 4,431 votes while his opponent Shah got 2,270 votes. It was Sami’s second attempt as he had lost his last year’s election to Malik Surood of the Independent Group.

After the announcement of the election results, the supporters of the winning candidate resorted to jubilation firing and also chanted slogans claiming they defeated a ‘mafia’.

Ammar Yasir was elected secretary general with 1,557 votes while Shakir Ali was elected secretary with 1,376 votes. Khurram Mir was elected senior vice president after getting 2,179 votes and Ahsan Nawab notched the slot of vice president with 1,777 votes.

Azmat Zia Sindhu and Shafqat Amin Sidhu were declared winner on one each seat of vice president of Model Town and Cantonment courts respectively.

Malik Jawad Awan and Zaman Jafar Dogar were elected finance secretary and joint secretary respectively. Sufi Atique Khan was elected library secretary.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2022