Mian Misbahur Rehman has been elected unopposed chairman of the Lahore Gymkhana Club along with his panel:
Mian Pervez Bandhara, Agha Ali Imam, Shafqat rana, Pervez Bashir agha, Zahid Nabi Malik, Khawaja Imran Zubeir, Karamatullah Chaudhry, Saeed Mian, Sarmad Nadeem, Ibsan Qadir. Qamar Khan (Bobby) was elected as an independent candidate.
Earlier, Gymkhana Club elections became controversial after members accused their executive committee headed by Chairman Salman Siddique of nepotism and malpractice, informed sources told Pakistan Today on Saturday.
Sources said that the annual general body meeting of the premier Gymkhana Club on Saturday witnessed a free for all match of abuses and fist fights just a day before the annual election. They said that the meeting ended in disarray after some members landed into a heated argument with the incumbent chairman, Salman Siddique, and his committee members over giving permanent memberships to some members who didn’t fall in the seniority list, and the chairman’s proposal that the constitution of the club be amended under Companies Ordinance 1984 enabling the governing body to remain in place for three years instead of one.
“Justice (r) Sajjad Sipra, a member of the governing committee, lost control over his temper and started abusing the members who were objecting to the out-of-turn award of permanent memberships. The retired judge did not just stop at the abuses, as he lunged at a member and grabbed him by the neck. The ruckus became so disruptive that the chairman and his committee members had no choice but to flee the meeting room,” said the sources. They added that the club members were adamant in their demand for cancellation of Justice Sipra’s membership over his inappropriate behaviour.
The club’s election will be held today (Sunday) and only one panel, led by former chairman Mian Misbahur Rehman, has so far entered the race. The bureaucrats led by Salman Siddique have not come up with a panel for this year’s election.