The 'Founder Group' has won the first phase of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI)'s elections, as other group boycotted the polling.
In the first phase of the election, eight candidates, four from each group, were in the field contesting for four seats of executive body of the chamber. However, at the last moment candidates of 'Butt Group' surprisingly decided not to participate in the elections.
According to the returning officer Khalid Javed out of 387 votes, 232 were cast while five were rejected.
The contestants, who were declared successful by the returning officer are: Abdur Rehman, Malik Saghir Ahmed, Mahmood Ahmed Warraich and Munnawar Iqbal by bagging 221, 221, 217 and 214 votes respectively.
The candidates of the Butt Group, Mehmood Ahsan Malik got 16 votes, S.A Waheed six, Shahid Zaman Shinwari 3 and Sheikh Pervez Ahmed bagged 10 votes.
The Butt Group, which is led by Shahid Rashid Butt, boycotted the election and rejected the results, saying that his group has done so due to violation of rules by the ruling group.
He said that the election was totally one sided and against the constitution of chamber. Shahid Butt said that his group would go to court against the ruling group, as neither their candidates and nor supporters were present in the election.
He also pointed out that his group has completely boycotted the election while the Founder Group cast some fake votes for its candidates.
Butt contented that it was the responsibility of the ruling group to issue voters list prior to the election, but till September 22 it was not issued.
He was of the view that the Founder Group's candidate for president, Abdur Rehman's membership was terminated two years back.
Shahid also pointed out that due to their non-participation, the turn out in the election was less than last year. He further said that his group would soon hold a press conference announcing its future line of action.
However, the returning officer said that there is no genuine justification of boycotting the polling process and opined that due to the weak support 'Butt Group' kept itself away from the election process.