SRINAGAR: Forty-five years after its first batch was admitted, the alumni of J&K Sainik School, Manasbal, have elected the first President of their Association.
Mohammed Yousuf Wani, a member of the School’s first batch, was declared elected on September 3 with 344 of the 765 valid votes. He took oath online on Saturday, September 5, in the presence of the Principal of J&K Sainik School, Manasbal, and alumni joining from across India and a dozen countries.
The election was conducted by an independent Election Commission comprising four alumni and chaired by Hamid Hajni. Its members included Dr. G. R. Beigh, Head of the Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering at the National Institute of Technology; Dr. Bashir Ahmad, IRS, Inspector General of Registrations; and CA Ovais Shah, Chartered Accountant and Registered Valuer.
Within three weeks, the Commission prepared an electoral roll of 1,034 members across 39 batches, published it in full and kept it open for objections for a week. It scrutinised five nominations and held two public debates online before the poll.
The ballot process was designed to be independently verifiable.
Each member received a confidential, one-time Voter ID by email. The ballot record was kept view-only by five custodians, while a cryptographic fingerprint of the complete record was generated every ten minutes during the two-day polling period and sent to all five custodians, making any subsequent alteration to even a single ballot detectable.
No person, including members of the Commission, could view the voting position before the count. The count was conducted on a recorded call in the presence of all four Commission members and verified through two independent recounts.
Of the 986 ballots received, 765 were valid. A total of 142 were repeat submissions against Voter IDs that had already been used, while 79 carried IDs that were not on the electoral roll.
All 221 rejected ballots were published along with the reasons for rejection. The full count sheet, every invalid entry and every valid ballot by ID have been made available on the Association’s website. Turnout stood at 74 per cent of the electoral roll.
The result:
Mohammed Yousuf Wani (1st Batch): 344 votes — 45.0 per cent
Dr. Nawab Nasir Aman (4th Batch): 226 votes — 29.5 per cent
Mohammed Ijaz Ul Haq Kanth (22nd Batch): 112 votes — 14.6 per cent
Junaid Ahmad Wani (16th Batch): 42 votes — 5.5 per cent
Farooq Zaidi (18th Batch): 41 votes — 5.4 per cent
“Seven hundred and sixty-five men voted from Manasbal, Leh, Delhi, the Gulf and Toronto, and every one of them can check on his phone that his ballot was counted. We did not ask the members to trust the Commission. We built it so they did not have to.”
— Hamid Hajni, Chairman, Election Commission
“I am not the President of the men who voted for me. I am the President of every alumnus of this School, of every batch and every region, and I will be judged on whether that is true a year from now. Our first task is a constitution the members themselves adopt; our lasting task is to stand behind the School and behind every brother who needs us.”
— Mohammed Yousuf Wani, President, JKSSM Alumni Association
The oath and what follows
The oath was administered online on September 5 by the Chairman of the Election Commission in the presence of the Principal of J&K Sainik School, Manasbal, who also addressed the alumni.
The President has committed to constituting an independent Constitution Drafting Committee, with applications open to every member. The committee will draft a constitution for the Association and place it before the members for adoption through a vote.
A formal gathering is scheduled to be held at the School on September 14, the anniversary of the first batch’s admission, at which batch coordinators and office-bearers will be installed.
The legal form the Association will take and the manner of its registration will be determined by the constitution and the members. No decision has been taken on these matters so far.
The Association has around 2,800 alumni, including serving and retired officers of the armed forces, civil servants, doctors, engineers, academics and entrepreneurs across India and abroad.
Its stated aims include supporting alumni facing hardship, providing mentoring and scholarships to students of the School, and supporting the School itself.
