East Burdwan district’s Azahar Mullick was on Saturday elected as the new chief of the state Youth Congress committee.

Mullick defeated Shaheena Javed, the candidate supported by state party president and MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, by a margin of 8,000 votes. Mullick was a general secretary in the outgoing Youth Congress state committee led by Sadaf Khan.

While the poll process took place between May 25 and July 2, the results were declared on Saturday morning.

“I am grateful to our senior leader Amitabha Chakraborty. It has been a trend for the last few years in Youth Congress polls that candidates who are supported by him (Chakraborty) emerge victorious,” Mullick said.

He was referring to the last state Youth Congress polls when Rohan Mitra, the son of the then Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee chief Somen Mitra, was defeated by Khan, who had Chakraborty’s support.

“The state committee created pressure on district and block committees to vote for my rival. However, I’m thankful that they voted for me,” Mullick added.

He said that he was also grateful to Congress councillor in Calcutta Municipal Corporation Santosh Pathak, former MLAs Nepal Mahato, Sankar Malakar, and Mushtaq Alam, Siliguri Municipal Corporation coun¬cillor Sujoy Ghatak, and Asansol Municipal Corporation councillor S.M. Mustafa.

“I will also call a meeting of the committee after Lakshmi Puja, which is on October 9, to decide on our future course of action,” Mullick said.