Noted Bengali writer Sunil Gangopadhyay was on Wednesday elected the new president of the Sahitya Akademi, considered India's most prestigious literary post.

Gangopadhyay defeated noted Malayalam writer and Jnanpith award winner M T Vasudevan Nair by five votes in the election for the post of president of the Akademi.

In an election for the post, necessitated after lack of consensus in the 89-member general council for the name of the president, Gangopadhyay bagged 45 votes while Nair got 40 votes.

Sanskrit scholar and writer Satyavrat Shastri, the third candidate for the post, got just seven votes in the election.

Noted Punjabi writer Satinder Singh Noor was elected as the vice president of the Akademi. Noor was declared unopposed to the post after former secretary of the Akademi Indranath Chowdhry withdrew his candidature for the post.

Famous writer Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari has been made the Akademi's Hindi coordinator.

The Sahitya Akademi is responsible for coordinating literary activities in all Indian languages and promoting the country's 'cultural unity'.