SRINAGAR: In the maiden elections to the Kashmir Press Club (KPC), the Broadcast and Multimedia Journalists association Kashmir(BMJA) led by alliance Anjuman-e- Urdu Sahafat and others won the Presidential post but loses other posts by minimal margin. Shuja ul Haq is the KPC president for two years.
However Kashmir Editors Guild (KEG) led Alliance won the 10 of the 11 positions. Haq polled 92 votes and KEG led alliance nominee Haroon Rasheed polled 91 votes.
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 other members who contested KPC elections polled : Irfan Qurashi 76, Farooq Wani : 32, Gowhar, Manzoor : 56, Mehraj Mir : 84, Bilal Furqani : 84, Arshad Ahmad Mir : 57, Nazir Ahmad Makhdoomi : 13, Vajeh Ahmad Andrabi : 29, Parvaiz Bukhari : 83, Shams Irfan : 34
Auqib Javeed : 99, Muzaffar Ahmad Khan : 18, Firdous Ahmad Dar : 70
Shabir Malik : 85
The maiden election of the KPC witnessed record polling as 231 of 252 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. BMJA congratulates all the Winning candidates and hopes the newly elected body will address the concerns of fraternity.
