KARACHI, March 10: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) on Friday put off Karachi Hockey Association (KHA) Sunday’s elections, while secretary Gulfaraz Ahmad accused PHF secretary Brig Musarrat Ullah Khan of hatching conspiracies.

KHA elections were scheduled to be held at Sindh Sports Board Complex under the supervision of SSB director Ghulam Akbar Shah Bokhari.

The elections were first to be held on Jan 6 but had to be postponed amid allegations levelled by Gulfaraz of attempted rigging by secretary scrutiny committee Iftikhar Syed and director domestic hockey, Muhammad Shafique.

On Jan 24, the elections again ended in controversy as Gulfaraz was reluctant to accept results after losing by some five votes because of non-availability of voters.

In an unprecedented move, sweeping aside all the rules and regulations, election coordinator in Sindh, Sindh Sports Minister Qamar Mansoor “elected” both Gulfaraz and Ejazuddin secretaries for two years each to complete four-year official term.

Although the two parties led by Gulfaraz and Ejaz apparently accepted the arrangement and idea proposed by Qamar, later things started brewing up and friction between the two groups aggravated. PHF organised an Inter-club tournament, Ejaz being the organising secretary and some 21 clubs belonging to Gulfaraz-led group boycotting the event.

On Thursday, Qamar, also a member of PHF advisory board, had announced that elections, to be held for the third time, would be conducted panel wise on Sunday. Interestingly, PHF postponed the polls while ignoring Qamar’s call for new elections.

The reason PHF gave to postpone the elections was “ground realities” and because of what it said complaints from various quarters.

“PHF after taking into consideration the ground reality and in the best interest of the game has decided to put on hold the scrutiny and elections process of District Hockey Associations in Sindh,” said a PHF press release.

Surprisingly, Gulfaraz claimed he had been informed by Qamar that KHA elections would be held on Sunday as scheduled. “The minister said PHF director administration, Iftikhar Syed, has no authority of calling the polls off. KHA elections will be on Sunday.”

The latest move was not welcomed by Gulfaraz who did not mince words in saying that it was being done by Musarrat to give Ejaz group a “helping hand” to put him at the helm.

“How elections and scrutiny of clubs can be put on hold while the process in Sindh has already been completed and details were submitted to PHF in mid-February. If PHF is putting the elections off because of irregularities in scrutiny then why it took so long to do it?

“If Musarrat thought that scrutiny of the clubs was not fair and it must be done again then why he did not intervene before. It means there was something wrong with the scrutiny. And if that’s true why PHF held Inter-club and then Inter-district tournament?

“We have suffered a lot because of these conspiracies which are being hatched to install favourites who could be Musarrat’s ‘Yes Man’. Our 21 clubs did not participate in the inter-club event which was a farce and even aging players as old as 40 or 45 years such as Farhat Khan and Waseem Feroze played in matches having 15-minute halves.

“PHF has been violating its own rules and regulations by ignoring Jan 6, 2006, deadline for completing elections in Sindh. I ask why election of only KHA secretary was conducted while elections of all the offices should have been completed by Jan 6,” he said.