Patna: The Patna University Teachers’ Association (PUTA) on Wednesday elected a new executive body after more than three years, with Kumar Satyendra Yadav winning the president’s post in a nail-biting contest decided by just two votes. Yadav defeated Shankar Kumar in a closely fought four-cornered contest. Shekhar was elected general secretary.Yadav secured 127 votes, edging past Kumar, who polled 125 votes. The other candidates, Shiv Sagar Prasad and Supriya Krishnan, received 102 and 42 votes respectively. Six votes were declared invalid, making it one of the closest contests for the association’s top post.In the race for general secretary, Shekhar polled 120 votes to defeat nearest rival Ashutosh Kumar, who secured 95 votes. Birendra Kumar received 83 votes, Deep Narayan 81 and Ashutosh Pandey 17.Salim Javed and Archana Jaiswal were elected vice-presidents with 301 and 210 votes respectively, while their rival Suppan Prasad Singh secured 175 votes.For the two joint secretary posts, Shobhan Chakravarty (200 votes) and Harish Das (122 votes) emerged victorious in a contest involving 10 candidates.Md Ziaul Haq was elected treasurer with 154 votes, defeating Jyoti Chandra, who polled 123 votes. Nabi Ahmad John finished third with 113 votes.Of the 419 eligible voters, 402 cast their votes, recording a turnout of nearly 96%.Among executive members, Sudhir Kumar and Shashi Gupta were elected from the social sciences faculty, Rishu Raj and Sanjay Kumar Priyadarshi from Magadh Mahila College, and Radhey Shyam and Anil Kumar Akela from Patna College. Twelve other executive members were elected unopposed.Chief election officer N K Jha declared the winners elected for a two-year term. The elections resulted in the formation of a new PUTA executive body after a gap of more than three years.—
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