PANJIM: Rajtilak Naik was elected as the president of the Goa Union of Journalists on Saturday during the annual general body meeting held in city. 

Rajtilak secured 160 votes while his opponent Vasant alias Jayant Katkar secured 43 votes in the results declared by Returning Officer (RO) Pandurang Gaonkar. 

A total of 205 voters of the registered 304 voters cast their vote giving a voting percentage of 67.43 per cent. Two votes were declared invalid. Rajtilak is a photographer with Times of India, Goa. 

The other 10 members of the executive committee elected are: Vasudev Pagi  (156 votes), Sagun Gawade (151), Ganesh Shetkar (126); Glenn Costa  (126); Kanzil Rodrigues  (112); Kailas Naik (102); Audumer Shinde (101), Pramod Thakur  (99); Tulsidas N Raul (98) and Suraj A Nandrekar (93).

Both Suraj and Narayan were tied with 93 votes and the winner was decided by a draw of lots after which Suraj was declared elected to the final position on the executive committee. 

Other candidates polled the following number of votes and were declared unsuccessful. Narayan Pissurlekar (93), Tukaram Govekar (75), Jai U Naik (69), Krantiraj Samrat (67), and Babasaheb Deshmane (57). 

RO Pandurang thanked those who pitched in with the election process including Ajay Lad, Nigam Dhavalikar and Atish Naik as well as the executive committee which organised the election.