CHICAGO: In keeping with the saying, "Old order changeth, yielding place to new", members of the Federation of Indian Associations (FIA) elected young community activist Hetal Patel as president for the year 2008-2009. In a meeting on Sunday afternoon at Indo-American Center, heads of 24 different Indian Associations joined the electoral procedure as laid down by FIA by-laws and cast their votes to elect a new executive body.

In all 23 votes were cast with one absentee.Sunny Gabhawala was elected as the Executive Vice President. Among other office bearers, Babu Varma, Sher Rajput and Kalpesh Patel were elected as Vice Presidents. Zehra Quadri was elected as Secretary and Sunil Shah as Treasurer. Ashraf Shareef was elected as Joint Secretary and Kishan Patel as Joint Treasurer.

The FIA new executive body will meet coming Sunday to chalk out the year long community programs.Iftekhar Shareef, the outgoing FIA president welcomed the new president. Introducing Hetal Patel, Shareef said that FIA has so far relied on mostly senior leaders; it is time to change the old order. He said that India media and community members were of the opinion that the new president be from among the younger or rather the second Indian American generation.

Hetal Patel was the consensus choice as she has been working for FIA community outreach programs among Indian American youths.Iftekhar Shareef also thanked FIA members, community leaders and all for the support he received as the president.

He called upon all to extend the same support to Hetal Patel.A beaming Hetal Patel said that she was excited to be the president of Chicago land's most prestigious Indian organization. She vowed to uphold the FIA values and do her best for the community programs. Hetal also expected that younger Indian Americans will come forward to contribute for FIA popularity in community. She called upon all community members to support FIA programs.The election meeting was presided over by Anil Pillai.

The votes were counted and ascertained by Sitaram Patel, Prahlad Patel and Usha Kamaria. Meanwhile, Shahid Rizvi, president of Urdu Academy owing allegiance to FIA, has sent his personal objections to the entire election procedure. In an email protest Shahid Rizvi showed his dissatisfaction with the election and asked for verification whether Zehra Quadri has Indian origin or ever held Indian nationality.