Mandya: Veteran litterateur Go.Ru. Channabasappa has been unanimously selected as the President of 87th Akhila Bharata Kannada Sahitya Sammelana (All India Kannada Literary Meet) to be held here from Dec. 20 to 22.

Kannada Sahitya Parishat (KSP) President Dr. Mahesh Joshi announced the name of Channabasappa at the meeting of folk experts, scholars and writers at Kannada Sahitya  Parishat Bhavan in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

Notably, Channabasappa had served as the President of KSP from 1992 – 1995, besides being the Chairman of Literary Meets held at Koppal (1993), Mandya (1994) and Mudhol (1995).

The selection of Channabasappa has put an end to the speculation over a personality from non-literature background most likely to be made the President of the literary meet.

As speculations gained momentum, the litterateurs and organisers, those in favour of Joshi, themselves had taken a strong objection to the same. Moreover, Joshi himself had admitted that there was a mounting pressure on naming a person other than literary field to chair the meet that had kept the heat on for the last  six months.