KARACHI, Jan 21: History repeats itself, indeed. The Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) have adopted the same course of action as they did five years back to set the house of its affiliated unit — Sindh Olympic Association (SOA) — in order by holding the quadrennial elections at a local hotel on Tuesday.

They had to intervene this time after the former SOA secretary convened a general body meeting on Jan 9 to hold the polls, a good six months after the expiry of the term. The move was opposed by the former president who insisted that barring him, the entire body ceased to exist.

Surprisingly, the SOA constitution doesn’t have any clause pertaining to the prevailing situation and the ball went into the court of the parent body – the POA. In a quick reaction, the POA termed the SOA defunct and constituted a three-member committee with the task to conduct the elections. Headed by POA secretary Abdul Khaliq Khan, it consists of POA treasurer, Maj. (retd) Mohammad Afzal and president PTTF, S. M. Sibtain.

The SOA has an electoral of 30 affiliated bodies, as approved by the POA, and every unit is allowed to cast two votes to elect the new body. Prior to the elections, verification of the provincial sports associations and their representatives will be carried out.

Both Khaliq and Afzal have already arrived in the city to supervise the polls.

The situation became more tricky after M. M. Mehdi and others filed a suit bearing No 61 of 2008 in the Sindh High Court.

The counsel for the plaintiffs, Qamar Ahmed Shaikh, submitted that the elections of SOA which is scheduled to be held on Jan 22 are in violation of the specific provision of the by-laws and that the bonafide members of the association have been

excluded and others who are

not eligible to cast their votes, have been included in the voter list.

Those who were made defendants include the POA president Lt. Gen (retd) Syed Arif Hasan, secretary Abdul Khaliq Khan, treasurer Maj. (retd) Mohammad Afzal, PTTF president S. M. Sibtain, former SOA officials Fakir Ayazuddin, Ahmed Ali Rajput and Arif Fahim.

However, when the petition came up for its first hearing on Monday before the learned Judge of SHC, Mr. Justice Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui, the counsel for the plaintiffs withdrew it.

Meanwhile, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Mohammad Ali Shah is likely to be voted president of the SOA for the next term of four-year.

Dr. Shah, who has a passion for sports, is also a strong candidate for the next month’s general elections on a provincial assembly seat from Karachi.

It is pertinent to mention that POA had also supervised the last elections of the SOA on July 12, 2003.

Affiliated associations of SOA: badminton, body building, boxing, baseball, cycling, canoeing, football, golf, gymnastics, handball, hockey, judo, kabaddi, karate, netball, shooting, rowing, rugby, skiing, squash, swimming, sailing, table tennis, tennis, tae kwondo, tug-of-war, volleyball, weight lifting, wrestling and wushu.