Merchant was elected with 251 votes, followed by Motilal Oswal (248), Himanshu Kaji (210) and Jayesh Sheth (211). The total number of votes polled were 1708.

Deena Mehta's nominee Cyrus Shroff, director of BD Shroff Securities ended up fighting for the fourth position with Shroffmissing the bus by a margin of only 8 votes. Dinesh Shah, yet another Mehta protege, managed to secure only 101 votes. Bharti Thakkar, the sole women candidate in the fray, could not manage even 100 votes, sources said.

Merchant's victory has proved the market pundits wrong who had predicted before the elections that the traditional fight between the two communities -- the Gujaratis and the Marwarais-- would be pushed to the background this time around. The elections for 1999-2000 did not disappoint the hard core traditionalists who seemed to get a kick from the age-oldbattle for supremacy between the two communities.

There were 11 contenders to fill the four vacancies arising out of the retiring of three members on March 31 and resignation of vice president Rajendra K Banthia.

The retiring members are MG Damani former president and director of MLR Securities, Jayesh Sheth, director of Kantilal Chhaganlal Securities, and Padmakant D Shah of Padmakant Devidas Securities.

Banthia had resigned when his stock broking firm along with 17 others were indicted in a case of price manipulations in the scrips of BPL, Sterlite and Videocon International and were debarred from trading.

Bharti Thakkar, Dinesh J Shah, Cyrus Shroff, Ameet R Dalal, Rajendra Prasad Jhunjhunwala, Madhukar Sheth and Bhanu Fozdar were the other contestants.

Now with the governing board in place, the internal nomination of the president would follow shortly, said BSE officials. According to BSE sources, the next board meeting which is likely to be scheduled on April 1 would decide on the nextpresident. In the light of the elections, market pundits once again predict that Merchant would be unanimously elected as the next president.

Interestingly, the entire election episode took an interesting turn with Sebi sacking JC Parekh, the president of the exchange on March 23 just a few days before the expiry of his term.

Although Parekh has managed to secure a stay from the Mumbai High Court to remain in office till the end of his term, he will not be allowed to remain on the board as per the Sebi order. This, according to BSE officials, would make it necessary to elect one more broker on the governing board which has a representation of nine elected members on the board. However the BSE board denied any such move, with hopes pitched on the appeal filed at the Appelate Authority. This according to sources could prompt the board to delay the first boarding of the new financial year and also that of the president's nomination.