Munawwar elected as PBSA president

KARACHI: Munawwar Hussain Shaikh was elected as the President of the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) here on Wednesday.

Jawed H Karim and Abdul Qadir Memon were elected as Senior Vice President and Vice President, respectively, for the next term of four years as the Association went to polls for the first time in its three decades of existence.

The polling, which started immediately after the 36th Annual General Meeting (AGM), concluded at the scheduled time of 8 pm.

The results for the post of the President were announced initially, according to which Munawwar bagged 108 votes while his rival Sarwar Siddiqui got 66 votes.

Jawed got elected by securing 108 votes, ousting the incumbent Abdul Wahid Qadir, whose tally of votes stood at 64.

Abdul Qadir Memon became the Vice President by getting 112 votes whereas his rival Shahnawaz Khan got 62 votes.

Zulfiqar Ramzi was elected Honorary Secretary ahead of Cyrus Kanga.

Irfan Moten became the new Honorary Treasurer by outvoting Amin Delawala.

Those elected to the Executive Committee were Abdul Rashid Lehra, Imran Razzak Kassim, Amin Bawany, Shariq Vohra, Mustafa Abdul Aziz, Nisar Ali Bhagat and Shabbir Hussain Daruwala.

The PBSA, which came into being in 1986, had elected its office-bearers unanimously and the closest it came to going to polls was in December 2012.

This time, the polling did take place, and there was a lot of buzz at the venue of the elections with a larger than anticipated turnout.

Mohammad Azam Dar, Director, National Federations, Pakistan Sports Board (PSB), supervised the proceedings, having flown in from Islamabad.

Munawwar, who served as the Honorary Secretary for the last eight years, has become the fourth president of the association, with Mazhar Iqbal Puri, Ali Asghar Valika and Alamgir Anwar Shaikh being his predecessors.

Talking briefly to ‘The News’ after winning the polls, he vowed to maintain the pace of the progress of Pakistan snooker. “My predecessors have done exceptional work over the years and I will continue to seek their guidance and support at every stage for the betterment of cue sports in the country,” he remarked.