Dr. ANIL SULABH UNANIMOUSLY ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE SAHITYA SAMMELAN

Dr. ANIL SULABH UNANIMOUSLY ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE SAHITYA SAMMELAN

28-JULY-ENG 1

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

PATNA-----------------------Dr. Anil Sulabh, the incumbent President of the Bihar Hindi Sahitya Sammelan (Bihar Hindi Literary Conference), has been re-elected unopposed to the post for the upcoming term. Following the scrutiny of nomination papers on Monday evening, the Returning Officer—Pandit Ji Pandey, an advocate at the Patna High Court—presented the certificate of election to Dr. Sulabh.

It is noteworthy that during the scheduled nomination filing days of July 25 and 26, only the incumbent President, Dr. Anil Sulabh, filed nomination papers for the post; no other individual submitted a nomination. On Monday evening at the Sammelan Bhawan, the Returning Officer—accompanied by Assistant Returning Officers Dhanendra Chaubey and Radha Raman—scrutinized the nomination papers in the presence of Dr. Sulabh (the sole candidate) and a large gathering of Sammelan members, declaring Dr. Sulabh's nomination valid. After confirming that Dr. Sulabh was not withdrawing his nomination, the Returning Officer announced his formal, unopposed election and presented him with the election certificate, while also felicitating and congratulating him. Dr. Sulabh was soon showered with floral garlands. A large number of litterateurs and Sammelan members extended their best wishes, including 93-year-old litterateur Dr. Shivvansh Pandey; the Sammelan's senior-most member and Dr. Sulabh's primary proposer Dr. Shankar Prasad; Dr. Pushpa Jamuar; Vibharani Srivastava; Dr. Nageshwar Prasad Yadav; Krishna Ranjan Singh; Pt. Ganesh Jha; Dr. Jang Bahadur Pandey; Prof. Usha Singh; Shama Kausar 'Shama'; Dr. Shalini Pandey; Chanda Mishra; Dr. Archana Tripathi; Sadanand Prasad; Er. Ashok Kumar; Sunil Kumar 'Malang'; Pravir Kumar Pankaj; Shambhunath Pandey; Shashi Bhushan Kumar; Shrikant Vyas; Vijay Kumar Singh; Ravikant Pandey; Indu Bhushan Sahay; and Shobhakant Jha. In his expression of gratitude, Dr. Sulabh stated that he was overwhelmed by the affection received from all the esteemed members of the *Sammelan*. Everyone placed their trust in him. Many members of the *Sammelan*—writers themselves—are eminently qualified for the position of President; yet, by choosing not to contest and instead bestowing this honor upon him, they have accorded him a distinction he can never forget. He expressed his gratitude to all and hoped for even greater cooperation than before, enabling them to undertake historic work to further enhance the prestige of the *Sammelan*. He further announced that a meeting of the *Sammelan’s* governing body, the ‘Standing Committee,’ would be held in the last week of August, and a new executive committee would be constituted in accordance with its directives.