Ahmed Shah Group Sweeps Arts Council Polls 2021-22

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Dec, 2020 ) :The Ahmed Shah-Ejaz Faruqi Panel has swept the election of the Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi 2021-2022, as none of the single candidate of the rival groups, Democrate Arts Forum and Arts Forum Panel could managed to return successful on the slot of member governing body.

Around 2135 members had cast their votes during the poll, of them 61 were rejected. Muhammad Ahmed Shah secured 1830 votes and was re-elected as president of the ACP for the next two years.

Haseena Moin secured 1825 and elected as vice president, Prof Aijaz Faruqi bagged 1851 votes and elected as Secretary while Asjad Bukhari got 1733 votes to win the post of Joint Secretary.

All 12 candidates of the governing body also returned victorious including Talat Hussain (1903) votes, Dr Qaiser Sajad (1857), Kashif Girami (1844), Qudsia Akbar (1838), Munawar Saeed (1808), Iqbal Lateef (1797), Noorul Huda Shah (1790), Amber Haseeb (1778), Saadat Jaffery (1756), Bashir Sadozai (1718), Nusrat Harris (1665) and Dr Ayub Shaikh (1657).

The Elections were held on Sunday under the supervision of Chief Election Commissioner, Commissioner Karachi in which a contest was held between Ahmad Shah Ijaz Farooqi, Democratic Arts Forum and Arts Forum panel.

The polling started at 10:15 a.m. when the first vote was cast by renowned surgeon Dr. Sher Shah Syed. The polling continued uninterrupted till 8:00 p.m. and more than 51 percent of members exercised their right of franchise.

All the elections arrangements were made under the COVID-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Sindh Ministers Nisar Khorro, Saeed Ghani and Shehla Raza besides MNA Kishore Zehra, noted business community leaders including S.M Munir, Manzar Alam, Shamim Farpo and others as well as known artists, writers and poets were among the members who voted in the elections.

Some members came to cast their votes in wheelchairs, including former bureaucrat Lala Fazlur Rehman, poetess Shahnaz Qureshi, former deputy speaker Abdul Bari Jilani and others.

The election commissioner was accompanied by a large contingent of Deputy Commissioner South Police.

Later, the president-elect Ahmed Shah announced to cut the cake at night between December 24 and 25, to celebrate the birth anniversary of father of the nation Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and also to observe Thanksgiving on victory in the ACP Election 2021-22.