GUWAHATI, March 13 - Manoj Kumar Nath has been elected president and Sanjoy Ray general secretary in the keenly contested elections of the Guwahati Press Club held yesterday after a gap of 17 years.
Nath defeated Atulya Madhav Goswami by a margin of 79 votes, while Ray defeated Partha Dev Goswami by a huge margin of 124 votes.
Polling was held from 8 am to 4 pm on Thursday, after which the counting began and continued till this morning amid a festive atmosphere on the Press Club premises at Ambari. Of the total 816 general members of the club, 765 turned out to cast their votes, recording a turnout of 93.75 per cent.
Soon after the counting of votes ended, the official results were declared at 5.30 am this morning at a press conference jointly addressed by Bijon Kumar Mahajan, returning officer of the GPC elections, and Ajit Patowary, presiding officer of the GPC election committee.�
The newly constituted body will have a term of two years.�
Dhaniram Kalita and Mousumi Sarma Barua have been elected as the vice presidents of the club, while Manindra Deka and Manisha Kalita are the new assistant general secretaries.�
Raju Baruah has been elected as the organising secretary, Nayan Pratim Kumar as the treasurer, while Pallabi Bora and Dhiraj Hazarika have been elected to the posts of cultural secretary and sports secretary respectively.�
There were 36 candidates, including eight women, in the fray for the 10 posts to which the elections were held. Among various organisations, the Assam Press Correspondents� Union has congratulated the winners and expressed the hope that the newly elected committee will work towards addressing the problems of the State�s journalist fraternity.
