Bhubaneswar Club Polls: It’s Asit Tripathy Vs S P Nanda in Prez Fight

Bhubaneswar: Elections to Bhubaneswar Club, Odisha’s premier recreational facility for the elites, will be held here on September 24.

Incumbent president Asit Kumar Tripathy will lock horns with Satya Prakash Nanda for the top post of the club. They are both retired IAS officers. A former chief secretary of Odisha, Tripathy has been serving as Principal Advisor to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Chairman of Western Odisha Development Council since he retired in December end 2020. Nanda retired as development commissioner and also served as chairman of Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission.

Tripathy won the last election, which was held after much delay, by defeating his nearest rival Bijay Kumar Patnaik, a former Chief Secretary, by a comfortable 278 votes. However, things have changed in the last one year and if sources are to be believed the retried bureaucrat no longer enjoys the confidence of the powers that be who ensured a win for him in 2021.

Finance secretary Vishal Dev, who is the secretary of the premier club, may opt out of the race.

Nanda and his supporters are fighting for a change to ‘save the club’.

The Bhubaneswar Club in the past had been headed by former chief ministers Harekrushna Mahatab (1957) and Biju Patnaik (1962-1964). Counting will be done on September 25, the notice issued by the club’s returning officer Jyoti Prakash Das said.