Campaigning gains momentum for PUTA polls

PATNA: Campaigning for to the Patna University Teachers' Association (Puta) gained momentum on Monday following the withdrawal of nominations by as many as 11 teacher contestants. Election to seven key offices of the association is scheduled for March 17.
As things stand today, the Puta elections would be fought between two teams, one representing the "old guard" and the other representing the "young blood".Both the teams have, however, tried to woo the 2003 batch lecturers. Both these teams had fought the recently concluded elections to PU Syndicate almost on similar lines.There is virtually straight contest on all the posts. While PU economics department head Rai Murari is fighting B N College history teacher and PU students' welfare dean P K Poddar for the post of puta president, Patna Science College geology teacher Anil Kumar is pitted against Vanijya Mahavidyalaya teacher S B Lal for the post of general secretary. Shiv Sagar Prasad of B N College is fighting against Kameshwar Pandit of personnel management and industrial relations (PMIR) for the post of treasurer.
There are as many as five contestants for two posts of vice-presidents. They are: B N College mathematics teacher Bal Gangadhar Prasad, PU Urdu department teacher Israel Raza, PMIR department head Prabhakar Jha and B N College teachers M N Sinha and Javed Hayat. For two posts of joint secretaries, as many as five teachers are in the fray.
They are: Madhu Rani Sinha, Manoj Kumar Sinha, Kumari Rupam, Awadhaesh Kumar and Nand Lal Paswan. No election would be held for Puta executive committee membership as all the candidates who had filed nominations from different constituencies were declared elected unopposed after Monday's withdrawal.