Music Academy elections - 2005

ChennaiOnline: "N Murali, buoyed by the success of his panel which made a clean sweep of all the posts in the Music Academy which were up for grabs in the November 6 elections, talked to Chennaionline in an exclusive interview on his plans for the prestigious institution which was mired in controversy in the last few years.

He is keen on streamlining and modernising the Academy even while ensuring continuity and traditions; he wants to make it "democratic, open and transparent" and take the Academy forward and address issues on different fronts.

It was an overjoyed Murali that I met on the premises of the Music Academy, close to midnight on November 7, 2005, barely a few minutes after he was profusely garlanded by his supporters, showered with praise from his newly-elected team, while there were a few showers from the rain God as well. Murali is the joint managing director of 'The Hindu'.

Murali's panel trounced the group led by Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti, not just in the contest for the presidentship and the posts of office-bearers and trustees but also in the tussle for the posts of executive committee members. All 12 members put up by the Murali group got through, ensuring a total rout for the Nalli Kuppuswami group.

Murali thanked the former judge of the Madras High Court, Mr Justice Sivasubramaniam, for smooth conduct of the elections which was carried out by him and his team with integrity and throroughness. He also thanked the police force, right from Commissioner Nataraj and the others for the arrangements made including traffic assistance on November 6 and 7, 2005, despite heavy rains, and also the members for coming out in large numbers to cast their votes and demonstrating their solidarity with the Academy.

Besides, Murali, (who secured 480 votes as against 230 polled by Nalli Kuppuswami), the following were declared elected:

R Ramakrishnan (Treasurer), C V Karthik Narayanan and P Obul Reddy (Trustees), Lakshmi Viswanathan, Maithreyi Ramadurai, Mano Bhaktavatsalam and M S Pattabiraman (Vice Presidents), Malathi Rangaswami, N Ramji, Dr V V Srivatsan and M S Venkataraman (Joint Secretaries).

The following were elected committee members (with the number of votes in the bracket): Kala Ramesh Rao (463), Sujatha Vijayaraghavan (442), Kripa Subramaniam (440), K V Krishnaprasad and K V Balasubramaniam (427), V Srikanth (390), K Mahesh (369), P Vasanthakumar (368), D R Santhanam (359), S V Ramaswami (325), N Suresh and S Swaminathan (301).

All the committee members were garlanded by Murali that night. They in turn garlanded Murali. The smiles, laughter and bonhomie were back at the Music Academy. "