CUTTACK 17-Sep-2012 434
All 22 office-bearers of Odisha Olympic Association (OOA), including president Samir Dey and general secretary Asirbad Behera, were elected unopposed for a four-year term today, two weeks ahead of the annual general meeting and elections, scheduled to be held at Barabati Stadium here on September 30.
Voting became redundant as the Scrutiny Committee received no other nomination papers at the time of verification today. Other 20 office-bearers, who were elected uncontested, include six vice-presidents, two joint-secretaries, one treasurer and 11 council members.
This is the seventh time in a row that Behera was elected as the OOA general secretary. This is also the fourth time in a row that he was elected uncontested. Interestingly, he occupied the post for the first time in 1988 when the election was conducted inside the High Court. With this victory, Behera retained the `double` following his triumph last month as the secretary of OCA.
For Samir Dey, the former Higher Education Minister of the state, this is the third time that he won as the president of OOA. Speaking on his future plans, the OOA general secretary said, 17 new districts and Odisha State Karate-do Association would be given affiliation soon. ``After getting affiliation the new districts would be entitled to annual grant of Rs 10,000 and one vote each,`` he added.
Office-bearers elected unopposed:
President: Samir Dey. Vice-presidents (6): Pitambar Jena, Kamala Kanta Pandey, Jaga Mohan Patnaik, Prasant Kumar Acharya, Pratap Satpathy, Manoranjan Mohanty. General secretary: Asirbad Behera. Joint-secretaries (2): Ashok Kumar Sahu, Rabindra Kumar Parida. Treasurer: Adhip Das. Council members (11): M A Alam, Anup Kumar Patra, Binod Chandra Das, Bijaya Kumar Rout, Rushinath Sahu, Sarat Kumar Sahoo, Binod Dash, Anil Kumar Bohidar, Narayan Sahu, Dulal Chandra Pradhan, Avijit Paul.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PHOTO: OOA president Samir Dey (Left) and general secretary Asirbad Behera
