The newly elected management committee members of the International Indian School-Jeddah with officials. (L-R) Ahmed Najeeb Hashmi, Mohammed Mahboob Ali, Mohammed Raziq, Mohammed Hyder Ali Qureshi, IISJ Principal and Election Commissioner Syed Masood Ahmed, Head of Chancery and the School Observer Muhammed Raqib Qureshi, Observer from the Ministry of Education Khaled Al-Ghamdi, Haroon Rasheed (new chairman), Dr. Abdul Aziz Amanullah Chogle and Mohammed lIyas Momin. — SG photo Hassan Cheruppa Saudi Gazette
JEDDAH — Parents of the International Indian School-Jeddah (IISJ) elected a new seven-member managing committee on Thursday. Haroon Rasheed from Bihar who scored the highest number of votes was later elected as the new chairman of the committee. Rasheed scored 835 votes in the election in which only 942 out of 5,800 eligible voters turned out to cast their ballots. Thirty votes were declared invalid. The new committee has a three-year tenure, but the chairman will serve only for one year, according to the election charter. The results were announced by Khaled Al-Ghamdi, observer from the Ministry of Education, after the counting held at IISJ Boys' Section Auditorium Thursday evening. Head of Chancery and the School Observer Muhammed Raqib Qureshi, IISJ Principal and Election Commissioner Syed Masood Ahmed, Election Commission members, including Sanil Balakrishnan Nair, and Aqeel Jameel, were present. Other elected committee members are Ahmed Najeeb Hashmi from Uttar Pradesh (781 votes), Dr. Abdul Aziz Amanullah Chogle from Maharashtra (775), Mohammed Mahboob Ali from Andhra Pradesh (731), Mohammed Raziq Abdul Vahid from Kerala (722), Mohammed lIyas Momin from Karnataka (713), and Mohammed Hyder Ali Qureshi from Andhra Pradesh (665). Two other candidates in the fray lost the election. They are Khaliq Sayeed from West Bengal (629) and Sebastian Kakkamattil Mathew from Kerala (533). When two candidates from Andhra Pradesh made it to the committee, Tamil Nadu does not have any representative even though the state comes third in the breakdown of IISJ students. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, Qureshi attributed the low turnout mainly to the lack of interaction between voters and candidates. “All candidates were supposed to have approached eligible voters seeking support, but apparently this did not happen. A lot of voters told us that they don't know anything about the candidates,” he said. “Many parents are preoccupied with correction of their work and residency status. This could also be another factor for the poor turnout”. Qureshi noted that in the elections, only around 1,000 voters had cast their ballots. There were 20 counters set up at the auditorium and the voting time was from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. According to the voters' list, around 5,800 Indian parents were eligible to vote. The number of parent-voters from the state of Andhra Pradesh topped the list with about 2,000, followed by Kerala with around 1,800. A total of 21 candidates had submitted their nomination papers to contest the election. Some of the candidates, whose papers were rejected, came out later questioning transparency and fairness of the election process. But the Election Commission rejected the charges. At present, the school has a nominated managing committee that assumed power in December 2011.
