Dr Girish Gandhi, a social worker and the one who has been endeavoring to take Nagpur’s cultural and literary movement ahead, won the much-publicised Vidarbha Sahitya Sangh polls. He had contested for the post of President. The counting was held on Sunday and Gandhi secured a whopping 2,261 votes. Gandhi will take charge as 23rd President of Vidarbha Sahitya Sangh on April 1, 2026. The results for the remaining 22 Executive Committee members are expected to be declared by Monday night; as only 600 votes for these posts have been counted so far. The vote counting process commenced on Sunday at 9:30 am.

 

 

The votes received by the five candidates contesting for the President post are: Girish Gandhi received a total of 2,661 votes; the current President Pradeep Date received 1,187 votes; current Vice-President Dr Shripad Bhalchandra Joshi received 701 votes; Dr Ravindra Shobhane and Ranjan Darvekar could garner 205 and 114 votes respectively. A total of 63 votes were declared invalid. The total of the votes secured by the all opponents come up to 2,207. It means Dr Gandhi left his opponents far behind. In this election, 4,935 voters exercised their franchise. Dr Girish Gandhi emerged victorious with a lead of 1,474 votes. The vote counting is currently underway under the supervision of Election Returning Officer Mohan Parkhi, with the assistance of college students.

 

The entire vote counting process and the results for the remaining members are expected to be finalised by Monday night. In the history of over 100 years of the existence of Vidarbha Sahitya Sangh, for the first time people witnessed grand and close contest as the body went to polls. Eleven candidates filed nomination for the post of President while 111 filed for the 22 executive posts. On February 9, six of 11 for President post and 28 out of 111 for executive posts withdrew on the last day. Those who withdrew for President Post were Adv Lakhan Singh Katare, Dr Pinak Dande, Pramod Bhusari, Shripad Aparajit, Satish Taral and Naresh Gadekar. The process of sending ballot papers to the residence of the voters and submitting them by the voters began on February 19. Voting ended on March 14. The candidates and voters objected the voting system. The elections were conducted after over 25 years. The ballot papers were sent to the voters’ residences. People faced some issues regarding their residential addresses. Some people were not aware of their old addresses where the ballot papers were sent. Some voters missed casting their votes.