Dr Jawad Sajid Khan was on Saturday elected as the new chairman of the Lahore Gymkhana for the next three years after defeating the outgoing chairman Kamran Lashari in a tough contest.
According to unofficial results, the Jawad Sajid/Mian Misbah-ur-Rehman-led panel secured 10 out of 12 seats of the executive body. Five independent candidates were also in the run. Of the club’s 5,500 permanent members, 3,966 cast their votes in the election.
The Jawad Sajid/Mian Misbah panel was being supported by former chairmen Salman Siddique and Fariduddin Ahmed, who were previously backing the Kamran Lashari panel, but had parted ways after the former reportedly went back on his commitment to hand over the club’s charge to Dr Jawad in the third year of his term.
Lashari had denied the charge, claiming that the executive body had advised him not to hand over the charge to Dr Jawad because “he was not a team player and continued acting as a splinter group”.
Lashari had vociferously pleaded his case for being entrusted with the all-important post once again on the basis of his “three-year performance” whereas Dr Jawad presented his credentials while questioning the former chairman’s “dictatorial rule and extravagant spending of members’ funds”.
It merits a mention here that the Jawad Sajid/Mian Misbah panel has promised club members that they would reduce the prices of food and beverages through best financial management practices and build parking space for 500 cars in a phased manner besides improving all facilities and services.
The Jawad/Misbah panel has also committed that it would hold club elections on an annual basis, saying the next elections would be held in February 2021 after approval from the general body.
The Kamran Lashari panel candidates were Kamran Lashari, Khawaja Imran Zubair, Shaukat Javed, Sami Ur Rahman, Ahsan Saeed Mian, Mian Javed Zahur, Dr Syed Atif Hasnain Kazmi, Qamar Khan (Bobby), Syed Tayyab Hussain Rizvi, Rabeea Salman, Zil e Ilahi and Prof Dr Col Iffat Batool.
The Dr Jawad/Mian Misbah panel candidates were Dr Jawad Sajid Khan, Mian Misbah Ur Rehman, Dr Ali Razaque, Samira Maroof Khan, Mian Parvez Bhandara, Sarmad Nadeem, Agha Ali Imam, Zahid Nabi Malik, Pervez Bashir Agha, Prof Dr Abdul Majeed Chaudhry, Wajid Aziz Khan and Taimur Azmat Osman.
The five independents were Syed Abid Hussain, Dr Shaukat Ali, Malik Ghulam Sarwar, Muhammad Shams Qaiser and Khalid Saeed.
