Liberal panel headed by Umakant Lakhera wins Press Club of India elections

The election at the Press Club of India was between two panels of 21 candidates each and a few independents. The voting took place on April 10

Liberal panel headed by Umakant Lakhera wins Press Club of India elections
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NH Web Desk

In the highly-contentious Press Club of India elections held on April 10, the panel which was supported by the outgoing management and considered to be the liberal group won four of the five top executive positions while 11 candidates from the same panel won managing committee positions from a total of 16.

The election was between two panels of 21 candidates each and a few independents.

Umakant Lakhera won as the Press Club president defeating Sanjay Basak of The Asian Age, Shahid Abbas won the vice president’s post defeating Pallavi Ghosh of News 18, Vinay Kumar won the post of general secretary defeating Santosh Thakur and Chandrasekhar Luthra won joint secretary position over Manas Gohain of the new panel.

Sudhi Ranjan Sen of the new panel won the post of Treasurer defeating Jyothika Grover of the original panel.

Several members of the new panel were seen supporting the BJP-led Central government’s controversial policies and lent their support to the BJP during the recent state elections.

AU Asif, Amrita Madhukalya, Anindya Chattopadhyay, Atul Kumar Mishra, Basant P, Mrigank Prabhakar, Sanjay Chowdhury, Sreeparna Chakraborty, Swati Mathur, Valsa Williams and Vijay Shankar Chaturvedi of the liberal panel were elected as managing committee members.

Anjali Ojha, Kamal Kishore Shankar, Poonam Agarwal, Praveen Jain and Rakesh Negi who contested under the new panel were also elected to the committee.

Of the managing committee members, Swati Mathur won the highest number of votes (653), followed by Anjali Ojha with 648. Of the independent candidates contesting for the managing committee, Vinay Kumar got the least number of votes at 95. Kumar had invited Dasna Devi Temple headpriest Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati to the Press Club in late March for an event where he had allegedly abused Prophet Mohammed.

Narsinghanand and Dasna Devi Mandir were in the news after a 14-year-old Muslim boy who went inside to have water was assaulted by the priest’s disciples.

The new general secretary Vinay Kumar defeated Santosh Thakur, a journalist at Navbharat, who was seen campaigning for BJP during the Bihar elections. Santosh had also demanded that the name of Mughal Gardens be changed.

Several south Indian journalists who had contested in the liberal panel lost including Anish Kumar of Asianet, D Umapathy and KVNSS Prakash of Sakshi, with the notable exceptions being Basant P and Valsa Williams.

The Press Club of India, according to reports, has an annual revenue of more than Rs 9 crore, with nearly 4,200 active journalist members, 900 associate members, and a few dozen corporate members, including the Uttar Pradesh Government and Pepsi.

On April 10, around 1,400 of the 4,200 eligible voters had cast their votes.

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    Published: 11 Apr 2021, 10:15 PM