New Delhi: The result of the Press Club of India election 2024 was declared on Sunday, with the existing panel of senior journalists Gautam Lahiri and Neeraj Thakur making a clean sweep. All the five Office Bearers and 16-member of managing committee posts were bagged by the Gautam Lahiri — Neeraj Thakur panel. Gautam Lahiri, who was the presidential candidate, secured 1045 votes while Atul Mishra and Arun Sharma managed to poll 133 and 116 votes, respectively. For the post of vice president, Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty got 930 votes whereas Rahil Chopra and Prahlad Singh Rajput received 230 and 100 votes, respectively. For Secretary General post, Neeraj Thakur defeated Laxmi Devi Aree and secured 913 votes. Afzal Imam was elected as the joint secretary while Mohit Dubey bagged the post of treasurer. There were 28 candidates in the fray for the post of 16-member of managing committee. Among the members, Aditi Rajput secured highest votes (985) and Meghna Dhulia got 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.
The Press Club of India is basically a meeting point for the journalists as it is located in the heart of Lutyens Delhi where Parliament House and other Ministries, which are the area of activity of the journalists, are located.
The idea to set up the Press Club of India was first conceived by eminent editor and veteran journalist Mr Durga Das way back in the early 1930s when he visited London as editor of the Associated Press of India which later came to be known as PTI. His visit to the London Press Club became a motivator for him to replicate the model in Delhi.