KMC: Counting on, four members declared elected

BANGALORE: Counting of ballots for the controversial elections to the Karnataka Medical Council (KMC), held after a gap of 17 years, are still going on, with four teaching members being declared elected. The results for the non-teaching staff for the remaining six seats, are expected to be announced on Thursday. Four out of the 12 candidates who contested under the teaching category, including Dr Uma BR from Davangere, Dr H Veerabhadrappa and Dr Ajit Kumar from Gulbarga and Dr Prabhakar from Tumkur, were declared victorious late on Tuesday night. As many as 18 non-teaching staff are fighting for the six seats in the KMC.A total of 10 executive members have to be elected to the KMC and one among them will be chosen as the next president by the Committee.Meanwhile, Medical Education Minister SA Ramadas said that there should be elections once in every three years. “We have not received any complaint against the KMC but action would be taken if we do get any complaint,” he said.KMC has received ballot papers of only 4,000 of the total 46,432 non-teaching staff and 1,500 papers of the 4,880 teaching staff registered in the KMC voters list to the posts of presidents and office-bearers, for which the elections were held on August 29. Many registered doctors from across the state alleged that they didn’t receive the ballot papers till the last day of submission and expressed doubts whether papers were dispatched to all the members on time. Dr Arvind Gubbi, a candidate, told Express that the elections were not fair. There are about 60,000 non-teaching and 9,000 teaching doctors and out of the non-teaching doctors, nearly 60 per cent had not received the ballot papers, he claimed.Meanwhile sources said that Dr Chikkananjappa who has been holding the post for the last 28 years, is accused of manipulating the entire election process to ensure his continuity.