Gautam Lahiri, Neeraj Thakur panel sweeps Press Club of India elections 2024

Senior journalists Gautam Lahiri and Neeraj Thakur were re-elected as the President and Secretary General, respectively on Sunday night in the Press Club of India election, held on November 9. 

In a statement, the Press Club of India said that the existing panel won all the five Office Bearers – President, Vice President, Secretary General, Joint Secretary and Treasurer and 16-member managing committee posts. “Gautam Lahiri, who was the presidential candidate, secured 1045 votes while Atul Mishra and Arun Sharma managed to poll 133 and 116 votes, respectively,” the PCI said.  

Press Club of India election result declared

Gautam Lahiri — Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty — Neeraj Thakur — Afzal Imam — Mohit Dubey Panel sweep #PCIElections2024 pic.twitter.com/dCHI0xBpM5

— Press Club of India (@PCITweets) November 10, 2024

For the Secretary-General post, Neeraj Thakur defeated Laxmi Devi Aere and secured 913 votes. He won by around 600 votes. Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, the new vice president managed to secure 930 votes whereas her rivals — Rahil Chopra and Prahlad Singh Rajput got 230 and 100 votes, respectively. 

Afzal Imam was elected as the joint secretary while Mohit Dubey bagged the post of treasurer.  After the result, Gautam Lahiri said: “We will continue working for the betterment of the club and keep on raising the issues of journalists and media freedom. We won because we had delivered in our previous term.”

In the 16-member managing committee posts, Aditi Rajput, an anchor with the NDTV, secured highest votes (985), while Pragya Singh and the Times of India’s Meghna Dhulia got second and third highest votes (906 and 905, respectively). 

There were 28 candidates in the fray for the post of 16-member of managing committee. Among the members, Aditi Rajput secured the highest votes (985) and Meghna Dhulia got the second highest votes (905). 

Apart from them, Surabhi Kanga, Pragya Singh, Nalini Ranjan Mohanty, Sunil Negi, Asis Gupta, Shankar Anand, Ravinder Kumar, Abhishek Kumar Singh, Anindya Chattopadhyay, Amitabha Roy Chowdhury, Mohammad Azad, Ashraf Bastavi, PR Sunil, and Pabba Suresh Babu were declared as the managing committee members. 

The polling for the PCI Election took place on November 9, wherein a total of 1357 members cast their votes.