The election process of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association has been halted and the processing is expected to extend till next month because the former chairman of APTMA from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ahmed Kuli Khan has approached the court for stay order.
Normally the elections processing at the APTMA are done in the month of September and the new elected body takes charge by the end of the month but this year things does not seems to be moving with the same time frame.
According to the industry sources, as many as 34 members from APTMA Faisalabad, 63 from APTMA Lahore and 15 from APTMA Multan had exercised their voting right when the APTMA Karachi office communicated the court order to suspend elections then and there. “Verdict of the voters was writing on the wall, as 111 votes were cast in favor of Shahzad Ayub against only one for Ahmad Kuli Khan. Therefore, he approached the PHC to get a stay order,” they added.
It is also said by the sources that none out of 13 in KP and 62 eligible voters in Sindh had cast their votes. They said the APTMA Election Commission had already set in motion the balloting for one vacant seat from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Region, when it was communicated by the Karachi office that the PHC has granted a status quo and suspended the election process on 18 of September.
Shahzad Ayub of Zainab Textile Mills Ltd was contesting against Ahmad Kuli Khan Khattak of Rahman cotton Mills Ltd for only one vacant seat of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) from KPK. It may be noted that the CEC members from the Punjab and the Sindh-Balochistan regions have already been elected unopposed for 2017-18.
When contacted Shahzad Ayub Khan said that he had contested the objections filed by Ahmad Kuli Khan Khattak before the Director General Trade Organisation (DGTO) and made clear that as per the records of APTMA, his textile unit Zainab Textile Mills Limited complies with all membership requirements prescribed in Article 5 of the Articles of Association of APTMA. The DGTO has already dismissed all the objections of Ahmad Kuli Khan after extending a detailed hearing on 11th September, followed by filing of a petition at the PHC by him to get a suspension order against the elections, he added.
However, Shahzad has vowed to contest the case in PHC as well in order to complete the process of change in the association in line with the aspirations of the APTMA members. The APTMA members have termed it as an effort to hamper a democratic process. They further criticized Ahmad Kuli Khan Khattak for using tactics to ensure an everlasting hold of a particular family in APTMA KP.
