LAHORE, Feb 14: The Lahore Arts Council’s board of governors chairperson has resigned due to what official sources said on Friday polarization among the board members.

Raza Kazim, a retired DMG officer, was appointed the chairperson by the governor after Alhamra was granted autonomy through an ordinance in October last year.

Sources claimed Mr Kazim tendered his resignation due to differences with some board members. The resignation was being forwarded to the chief minister, now patron of Alhamra, for approval, they said.

They said the new chairperson would be appointed by the chief minister out of a panel of candidates to be forwarded to him by the information and culture department.

Mr Kazim was not available for a comment.

Raza Kazim was among the 12 non-official members of the Alhamra board of governors who were nominated by the governor. Majority of them were taken while ignoring the panel of 24 candidates put forward for the selection by the information department according to the procedure laid down in the ordinance.

Before resigning, Mr Kazim presided over a meeting of the board during which representatives of the provincial finance and information departments raised objections on some of the items on the agenda. One objection was reported to be the grant of one salary as bonus to the Alhamra staff.

The sources said the bonus was allowed despite the objections by the two officers that the rules and regulations did not provide for such rewards.

They said the minutes of the meeting had not yet been sent to the information department. It was mandatory, they claimed.

Before autonomy, the Alhamra board chairperson was used to be elected by its non-official members. But the procedure was changed in the ordinance, empowering the governor to appoint the chairperson instead because of the reported polarization among the members of the previous two boards which were headed by Faqir Syed Aijazuddin.

Mr Kazim whose wife was actually nominated in the panel of 24 people was made the chairperson reportedly due to his reputation as a strict disciplinarian and a former executive director of Alhamra.

Other members of the board are Shirin Pasha, Hayat Ahmad Khan, Saleema Hashmi, Sehr Saigol, Asghar Nadeem Syed, Sarwat Ali, Saba Husain, Perin Boga, Nayyar Ali Dada, Munnoo Bhai and Sara Zaman.

Meanwhile, the government has amended the Alhamra Ordinance making the chief minister its patron instead of the governor.