Haveri: The 87th edition of Akhila Bharata Kannada Sahitya Sammelana will be held in Mandya.

A decision in this regard was taken during a closed-door meeting of the Executive Committee of the Kannada Sahitya Parishat that was held at Circuit House in Haveri yesterday. Parishat President Mahesh Joshi announced the next venue for the annual Kannada Literary Meet. The decision was taken after voting of Committee Members, the majority of whom are Presidents of district units of the Parishat.

In fact, the Committee met on Saturday night itself but failed to arrive at a consensus on where the next meet should be held, since several district units of the Parishat claimed their right to organise the Sammelana.

The competition finally resulted in the Committee Members being asked to vote for the next venue In the voting, Mandya bagged 17 of the 46 votes cast.

Addressing press persons, Mahesh Joshi said that Parishat had received applications from the districts of Bengaluru Rural, Mandya, Chikkamagaluru, Uttar Kannada, Ramanagara, Ballari, Belagavi, Kolar and Chikkaballapur for hosting the Sammelana.

Subsequently, the applications of Bengaluru Rural, Belagavi, Ramanagara, Kolar and Chikkaballapur were withdrawn.

With this, only Mandya, Chikkamagaluru, Uttar Kannada and Ballari remained in the fray. Out of the 54 members of the Committee, 46 had taken part in the meeting, he said.

Three districts — Bengaluru Rural, Chamarajanagar and Yadgir — have not organised the event even once.

As per tradition, the decision to select the next venue should have been taken on the night of the second day of the event. However, Joshi expressed his intention to tour all the hosting districts to check the feasibility and then decide on the venue.

“An event of this scale cannot be organised in a grand manner without the co-operation of the District Administration and Government. In spite of Haveri being the home State of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, there were several shortcomings,” he said.

“Road repair works were incomplete, lodging facility was not up to the mark and as such, to avoid a repeat of similar problems in the next meet, I want to tour all the aspiring districts and based on the facilities, I want to take a call on the next venue,” he claimed.

The Committee Members, however, were unrelenting and urged the President to follow the tradition and announce the venue.