Parvez Ahmed, the outgoing Vice-President of the Press Club of India, has been elected as the new President of the Club for the year 2008-09 in the elections held on October 19.
Pushpendra Kulshrestha was re-elected as Secretary General.
Ahmed of ARY One World News of Dubai polled 458 votes, defeating his nearest rival, Neelam Mahajan Singh, a veteran broadcast journalist, in a four-cornered contest. Singh polled 330 votes.
Jayanta Bhattacharya of Times Now and Narendra Bhalla of Hindi Outlook have been elected as Vice-Presidents, while Nadeem Ahmed Kazzmi of NDTV is the new Treasurer of the Club.
The elected members of the executive committee include Ajay Verma, Anand Kumar, Anoop Saxena, Arun Jetli, Aruna Singh, Ashish Kumar Singh, Ashok Wankhade, Avtar Negi, Jagdish Yadav, KN Joshi, Manas Banerjee, Pramod Kumar, Pramod Pushkarna, Ritu Verma, Savita Srivastava, and Vijay Shankar Chaturvedi.
A major highlight of the elections was that this year the Press Club is celebrating its Golden Jubilee. Another highlight was that this time as many as six women candidates were in the fray contesting for the key posts of President (Neelam Mahajan Singh), Secretary General (Seema Kiran and Karuna Madan), Vice-President (Savita Srivastava), and executive committee members (Ritu Verma, Aruna Singh and Savita Srivastava).
This year’s elections at the Press Club of India assumes significance as the new committee has its task cut out to take possession of the land allotted to the Club by the Government on Rajendra Prasad Road, New Delhi, and start construction of the Club. The new building of the Press Club of India has been conceived as a model four-storey facility, complete with a media centre, conference room, residential block for member guests, family hall, restaurants, ATMs, et al.