Ranchi: She personifies beauty with brains. And on Saturday, advocate Rinku Kumari Bhakat stormed a male bastion called Jharkhand State Bar Council.

With the counting of votes of the third Jharkhand State Bar Council elections over, advocate Bhakat emerged as the sole woman candidate to secure a berth in the 25-member prestigious legal body.

Not only that, Bhakat set a record by being the first woman member to be elected in the Bar council since Jharkhand was formed in 2000.

The Bar council is the state's apex body empowered to give licences to lawyers or to debar them from practising.

In the Bar council election held on March 16, where only lawyers were eligible to vote, and where winners were ranked through a system of points, Bhakat was ranked a creditable 15th among the 25 winners.

Asked, Ratu Road resident Bhakat, an alumna of Hazra Law College in Calcutta from the Class of 1997, and a Mrs India beauty pageant winner in 2017, smiled when told she had become something of a torchbearer with this Bar council win.

"I am grateful to everyone who reposed their faith in me by voting for me, and my husband Dr Major Narendra Madhukar," Bhakat told this paper on Saturday. "I will do my best to serve the legal fraternity. I will ensure all lawyers in the state have medical insurance and their premiums are paid by advocates' associations of which they are members. Stipends to the new entrants in the legal profession will also be my primary concern," she said.

Bhakat, who practises in Ranchi district court, is also associated with NGOs working on abolishing witchhunt, and an accomplished Madhubani and Sohrai painter.

Amid the praise and media attention, Bhakat is a picture of poise.

Asked how she manages to stay unruffled, she said, "Through my painting. I also teach painting to children, which makes me very happy. Painting relaxes me.The secretary of Advocates' Association, Jharkhand High Court, Hemant Kumar Shikarwar said she deserved her victory.

"She has clearly made an impression among voters across the state who have elected her as a member of this august Council," said Shikarwar, also a winning candidate and a member of the Council.

"She has worked hard and her efforts are clearly visible," Shikarwar said.

Jharkhand State Bar Council 2018 polls returning officer Kumar Ganesh Dutt informed the media about the 25 winners on Saturday. Dutt added that the list of winning candidates would be forwarded to the Bar Council of India and Election Tribunal in Delhi. The list of the candidates will be published in the gazette to complete the election process.

"Elections were held fairly," he said, claiming this was the best-conducted Bar council election in India.