Bringing an end to the Praveen Togadia era, former Himachal Pradesh governor VS Kokje was on Saturday elected as VHP’s new international president for which voting was held for the first time in over five decades.
Kokje got 131 votes and defeated incumbent Raghava Reddy, a close aide of outgoing VHP President Praveen Togadia, who could muster 60 votes. In total, 192 delegates of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad were entitled to cast their votes in the election in Gurgaon.
The election was necessitated after the organisation’s members failed to reach a consensus on a new international president.
Togadia has lately been at loggerheads with senior BJP leaders and had claimed that there was threat to his life.
(With inputs from PTI)