Cuttack Barabati BJD MLA Debashis Samantray and Debabrata Bhatta of Dhenkanal were elected as new president and secretary respectively of All Odisha Chess Association (AOCA) for a three-year term today. Election for a total of nine posts was held at Hotel Saat 7 here, in the presence of All India Chess Federation secretary Bharat Singh Chouhan and Election Officer Sriharsh Pradhan.

For the first time in the history of AOCA, a politician was invited to contest for the post of president and was helped to win comfortably as well. Creating another surprise, lesser-known names won most of the posts, while known faces suffered defeat.

Treasurer Sankar Prasad Mishra was the only office-bearer, who got elected unopposed. Suresh Chandra Sahoo, who played crucial role in making AOCA a progressive state sports body, however, turned out to be most unlucky contestant in the elections as he lost by toss of coin for the post of joint secretary.

One representative each from 16 affiliated district units voted in the elections. The district unites were: Angul, Balasore, Boudh, Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Ganjam, Jajpur, Khurda, Kendrapara, Keonjhar, Phulbani, Puri, Mayurbhanj, Sambalpur, Sonepur and Sundargarh.

ELECTION RESULTS:

President: Debashis Samantray (10 votes) beat Biswajit Ray (4 votes) and Debashis Chakraborty (1 vote).
Vice-president: Ranjan Mohanty (13) beat Subhasis Pattnaik (3).
Secretary: Debabrata Bhatta (10) beat Ashis Mohanty (6).
Joint-secretary: Bidhu Bhusan Mishra (8) beat Suresh Chandra Sahoo (8) by toss of coin.
Treasurer: Sankar Prasad Mishra (Elected uncontested)
Executive Committee Members (4): Suresh Kumar Patel (14), Subhash Chandra Sahoo (10), Sandeep Samantray (10), Manoj Parida (10).
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PHOTO: New AOCA office-bearers (L to R) Suresh Chandra Patel, Bidhu Bhusan Mishra, Debabrata Bhatta, Sankar Prasad Mishra, Ranjan Mohanty and Subhash Chandra Sahoo in Bhubaneswar on Feb 3, 2019.