SRINAGAR: In the maiden elections to the Kashmir Press Club (KPC), the Kashmir Editors Guild led alliance swept the polls by winning 10 of the 11 positions. However, it lost the president’s seat by a vote. Shuja ul Haq is the KPC president for two years, Chief Electoral Officer Manzoor Anjum announced.
Haq polled 92 votes and KEG led alliance nominee Haroon Rasheed polled 91 votes.
According to the results announced by Anjum, who headed the 8-member election body, a total of 131 votes were polled for the post of president. The seat was being contested by three candidates. While two votes were rejected, Shuja polled 92 votes and Haroon 91. As many as 46 votes were polled by Zulfikar Majeed, the third contestant.
For the position of Vice President, there were three contestants: Mohammad Mouzam, Wasim Khalid and Tajamul Islam. Of the 211 votes that polled two were rejected. Mouzam took 130 votes and Tajamul 75. Wasim Khalid polled 24 votes.
There were three candidates in fray for the position of General Secretary – Ishfaq Tantray, Hakeem Irfan and Reyaz Malik. A total of 231 votes were polled of which six were rejected. Of the polled votes, 102 were polled by Tantray, 95 by Reyaz Malik and 28 were Hakeem Irfan.
For the Treasurer position, there were only two persons in the contest – veteran photographer Farooq Javed Khan and Arshad Rasool. Khan polled record 178 votes as his rival got only 44 as nine were rejected during counting.
The election also elected seven executive members. There were 21 persons in the contest. Those who were elected include Habib Naqash with 150 votes; Arshad Hussain Shah with 122 votes; Shafat Kirra with 105 votes; Altaf Baba with 86 votes; Nisar Ahmad Bhat 122 votes; Auqib Javed with 99 votes and Gowhar Geelani with 106 votes.
The maiden election of the KPC witnessed record polling as 131 of 152 voters cast their votes. There were more members who voted using WhatsApp facility that the election body had arranged. The polling remained clean, transparent, well and incident free. The election body had sought help from two senior lawyers from the Kashmir Bar Association that helped in holding the transparent election.
For the whole day, the KPC remained highly busy and crowded. For the first time, on the orders of the election body, no outsider was permitted.
