Team Sanjeev Pargal secured landslide victory in the Press Club of Jammu elections declared late last night by winning all four posts of office bearers and seven of Managing Committees, the voting for which was held in the day earlier.The team was backed by two former presidents of the Press Club—Manu Shrivatas and Ashwani Kumar.Results were announced after nearly seven hours long counting by Mohinder Bhardwaj, president Jammu Bar Association, who acted as Returning Officer for the elections and Assistant Returning Officers including Pawan Maini, Ravinder Sharma, CM Sharma, all Advocates and Sanjeet Khajuria, senior journalist.Sanjeev Pargal, Bureau Chief was declared elected as president polling highest number of 405 votes while Surinder Sharma, another contestant for the post of president got 91 votes.A total of 504 out of 591 eligible votes were cast for the elections from 10 am to 5 pm.All posts of the Press Club of Jammu were captured by the candidates of Team Sanjeev Pargal as the opponents couldn’t get a single post.Election was held for a total of 11 posts including four office bearers and seven of the Managing Committee.Zorawar Singh Jamwal was elected as vice president by securing 404 votes while his opponent Ravinder Singh got 87 votes.Dinesh Manhotra secured 396 votes to be elected as Secretary General. Sumit Sharma, contesting for the same post, took 94 votes.Channi Anand bagged 392 votes and was announced as new Treasure of the Press Club. Second candidates for the post Sudhir Kumar took 96 votes.Seven Members, who were elected to the Managing Committee include Nishikant Khajuria (393 votes), Dinesh Mahajan (386), Ajay Meenia (355), Govind Chouhan (333), Deepak Khajuria (332), Vishal Bharti (323) and Kunal Shrivatas (309).Other candidates in the fray for Managing Committee, who lost the election, were Rajinder Kumar (148 votes), Rahul Sharma (141), Mir Imran (130), Sham Sunder (128), Vishal Sharma (119), Varun Magotra (110), Rohit Gupta (94) and Rajiv Mahajan (80).Soon after the election, newly elected president Sanjeev Pargal extended thanks to Bar Association Jammu president Mohinder Bhardwaj, Returning Officer and all Assistant Returning Officers Pawan Maini, Ravinder Sharma, CM Sharma and Sanjeet Khajuria for conducting, free, fair, smooth and transparent elections for the Press Club of Jammu in nearly a month-long exercise.Earlier, members of the Press Club of Jammu spread over entire North India participated in the elections.Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Dr Jitendra Singh, who is founder member of the Press Club of Jammu, specially flew-in from New Delhi to cast his vote.Many members of the Press Club from New Delhi, Chandigarh and Kashmir valley besides various districts of the Jammu region also cast their votes.A total of 591 journalists were eligible for the voting while 504 cast their votes.
