OKARA, Jan 10 As many as 900 lawyers, including 61 women, will elect five District Bar Association (DBA) officials in its annual elections on Jan 13. Three officials, senior vice-president, vice president and library secretary, have been elected unopposed.

Traditional rivals, the Arain group and Rajpoot group, have fielded their panels. The Arain group has fielded Ch. Shahid Mehmood for the slot of president, Ch. M. Riazul Haq for general-secretary, Saima Rashid for joint-secretary, Allah Ditta Ansari for finance-secretary and Abdul Razzaq for the slot of auditor.

The Rajpoot group has fielded Rai Muhammad Shafi Kharl for the office of president, Syed Kusar Iqbal Shah for general-secretary, Zafar Iqbal Qaiser Bhatty for joint-secretary, Sardar Abdur Rehman Dogar for finance secretary and Anwaar Khan for the office of auditor.

Both the presidential candidates are politically active. Shafi Kharl had been a member of the district council twice while Ch. Shahid had been general-secretary of the DBA and former naib nazim of the city union council.

Hameed Ahmad Fraz Bhatty has been elected senior vice-president, Muhammad Asghar Bhutta vice-president and Uzma Jamil library secretary after their rival candidates, Malik Abbas Haider, Rana Waqas Ahmad and Mian Javid Akhtar, respectively, withdrew their nomination papers.