LAHORE - In what appears to be a total disconnect between the PPP’s top hierarchy and its Punjab leaders, the latter on Sunday asked the Punjab government to announce a date for local bodies’ elections in the province.
Interestingly, the demand which is in sharp contrast to a statement by a senior party leader, Khurshid Shah, who has questioned the feasibility of such an exercise close to the general elections only two days ago.
“We demand announcement of election schedule within 24 hours to implement the Supreme Court decision,” said federal state minister and party’s Central Punjab President Imtiaz Safdar Warraich while addressing a local bodies’ convention held at Aiwan-e-Iqbal in line with the decision of party’s Punjab executive committee.
Interestingly enough, party’s southern Punjab organisation, which is supposed to abide by decisions of the Punjab executive, has no plans in the near future to hold any such events.
“We are seeking a meeting with senior party leader Faryal Talpur and then some decision may be taken on the issue,” party’s south Punjab Secretary Information Shaukat Mehmood Basra told TheNation who also confirmed they had no plans to hold local bodies’ conventions in the near future.
When asked to comment on Khurshid Shah’s statement opposing the local government elections, Basra said that he might have said so in his personal capacity.
The convention at Aiwan-e-Iqbal got a lacklustre response from the ex-nazims, naib nazims and councillors as only few turned up on the occasion, thus making it a non-event. Rao Hashim, Nadeem Ashraf Kaira and Ghulam Farid Kathia were some of the prominent nazims in attendance.
Imtiaz Safdar in his address said that Punjab government’s decision of not holding local government elections was sheer injustice to the people, adding that PML-N was avoiding elections fearing defeat.
He demanded that not only polls should be hold immediately but they also must be party-based. Safdar alleged that Punjab government had plans to distribute funds meant for district governments among the party workers and this was another reason to delay the polls.
Speaking in favour of the local government system, federal minister and party’s Lahore President Samina Ghurki said the system enabled the elected representatives to resolve problems of their electorate at the grassroots level.
She said Punjab government should hold LG polls at the earliest, as any further delay in starting the electoral process would tantamount to usurping peoples’ rights. She also alleged that Punjab government wanted to misuse local government funds by not holding the elections.
Senior party leader Ch Mazoor said that so-called custodians of the constitution were now committing contempt of Supreme Court by not following its decision on local elections. Tasnim Qureshi also demanded party-based local elections in Punjab.
Other leaders including Raja Riaz, Haji Azizur Rehman Chan and Zekria Butt also exhorted upon the Punjab government to announce schedule of elections to enable elected representatives to run the local governments. Raja said PPP would not let Punjab government to go scott-free if it did not hold the polls.