In a vote-count on the sidelines of a full-fledged meeting of the apex literary body for the outgoing term, 2005-’07, at the Radhakanta Handique Bhavan here today, the incumbent president pipped four other rivals to the post. Deka will preside over the 69th session of the AXX to be held at Chapor in March next year.
The number-crunching exercise was a closed-door affair. The election officer deputed by the literary body, Hiranya Kumar Bhattacharya, conducted the counting exercise in the presence of ‘agents’ of each of the five candidates in the fray. Apart from Deka, the four others were Dr Nabin Chandra Sharma, an expert on folk and culture studies, Dr Satyendra Narayan Goswami, linguist, Ambika Charan Choudhury, educationist and Indeswar Goswami, novelist and former vice president of the AXX.

The officials of the literary body remained tight-lipped on the fate of the candidates during the counting. Bhattacharya formally announced the election of Deka as the president of the AXX at the executive committee meeting running concurrently.
The executive committee meeting took a decision to hold the Chapor session of the AXX over four days.

(The Sentinel,25.11.2006)