LAHORE, Nov 12: The annual elections of the Punjab University Academic Staff Association (PUASA) will be held on Wednesday (tomorrow).

Arch rivals — the Academic Group and the Academic Forum — have fielded their candidates.

Academic Group’s Dr Khwaja Haris Rasheed (Centre for High Energy Physics) and Academic Forum’s Dr Iftikhar Husain Baloch (Geology) are contesting for the seat of president. Dr Rasheed has been PUASA secretary for the last 10 years.

Academic Group’s Syed Ziaullah Shah (IER) has been elected unopposed as joint secretary because his rivals’ nominations were rejected for technical reasons.

It was learnt that the Academic Forum has got stay order against the unopposed election of joint secretary. The stay order has been submitted to the election committee chairman, Prof Dr Shafeeq Ahmad.

The Academic Group’s Dr Abdul Ghaffar (Geography) is contesting for the seat of vice-president (science); Dr Mehr Saeed Akhtar (IER) for vice-president (Arts); Dr Aurangzeb Alamgir (Urdu) for secretary and Zulfiqar Ahmad (Hailey College of Commerce) for treasurer.

The Academic Group’s eight candidates for executive members, four each for Quaid-i-Azam and Allama Iqbal campuses are: Dr Akhtar Ali Saleemi (Geology), Qazi Javed Iqbal (Zoology), Dr Niaz Akhtar (Chemical engineering), Dr Shahid Kamal (statistics), Amjad Pervez (Fine Arts), Dr Asif Saeed (Pharmacy), Hafiz Maqeet Javed Bhatti (Arabic) and Dr Mahmoodul Hasan Arif.

The Academic Forum’s candidates Prof Dr Rukhsana Bajwa (Botany) is contesting for the seat of vice-president (science); Dr Nadeem Ahmad Bhatti (Botany) for vice-president (Arts); Dr Muhammad Fakharul Haq Noori (Urdu) for secretary and Dr Zaid Mahmood (Chemistry) for treasurer.

The Academic Forum’s eight candidates for executive members, four each for Quaid-i-Azam and Allama Iqbal campuses are: Dr Hameed Nawaz (IER), Prof Shaista Sonnu Sirajuddin (English), Mushtaqur Rahim (IBA), Tauqeer Ahmad Warraich (History), Dr Khaliq Dad Malik (Arabic), Maliha Azmi Agha (Fine Arts), Khwaja Shakeel Ahmad (Kashmiriat) and Ghulam Moeenuddin (Persian).