Bengaluru: Kannada littérateur and Jnanpith awardee Prof. Chandrashekhara Kambara has been elected as President of Sahitya Akademi in the election held for the post on Feb. 12. Hindi poet Madhav Koushik has been elected as Vice-President.

Prof. Kambara is the third Kannada Writer to head the country’s premier literary institution after Vinayaka Krishna Gokak (1983) and U.R. Ananthamurthy (1993).

According to sources in the Akademi, Prof. Kambara secured 56 votes, while his nearest contender and Odia Writer Pratibha Ray got 29 votes. Marathi writer Balachandra Nemade, who was also a ‘symbolic’ contestant, secured four votes.

This is the second time that the election was held in the history of Sahitya Akademi, after Ananthamurthy’s election to the post. Prof. Kambara has served as Member of the Akademi Executive Board for over 10 years and was the Vice-President  during 2013-18.