Rafiqul Islam Azad of the Daily Independent and Reaz Chowdhury of the Asianmail.com were elected president and general secretary of Dhaka Reporters unity (DRU) respectively in an election on Saturday.

Amid huge enthusiasm, 1,329 voters out of 1,635 cast votes to elect DRU’s the executive committee for 2020 term. The election was held at the Sagar-Runi auditorium of the DRU from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm without any break.

Rafiqul Islam Azad bagged 550 votes while his nearest rival Shah Newaz Dulal got 489 votes.

Reaz Chowdhury got 567 votes to defeat Nurul Islam Hasib by only two votes.

Nazrul Kabir was elected vice-president capturing 488 votes and Helemul Alam Biplob was elected joint secretary securing the highest 851 votes.

The other elected office-bearers are finance secretary Ziaul Haque Sabuj (Unopposed), organising secretary Habibur Rahman, office secretary Jafar Iqbal, women affairs secretary Rita Nahar (unopposed), publicity and publication secretary Maidur Rahman Rubel,  training and research secretary Sakhawat Hossain Sumon,  sports secretary Mojibur Rahman, cultural secretary Mizan Chowdhury, entertainment secretary HM Akhter (unopposed) and welfare secretary Khalid Saifullah (unopposed).

The executive members are Moinul Ahasn, SM Mizan, Musfiqa Naznin, Kamruzzaman Bablu, Imran Hasan Majumder, Murad Hossain and Sayeed Abdul Malik.

Election Commissioner Monjurul Ahsan Bulbul announced the election results around 6:30pm after counting of the votes.