MIRPUR (AJK)-AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider Khan has said that his government firmly believes in good governance, rule of law and merit in the State. He was addressing public meetings at Dhar bazaar and Rakkar in Hajirah sector as part of campaign of PML-N candidate Sardar Amir Altaf for by-elections here.

The by-elections scheduled to be held in constituency-II on Oct 21, which fell vacant due to sudden death of KB Khan, a PML-N MLA from the area.

He assured that the problems of the people, living near Line of Control, who are playing their role to defend the motherland side by side armed forces of the country, would be addressed by his government on priority basis.

Recounting his government’s commitment and performance, the AJK premier said violation of merit has always been a problem in AJK. To address it once for all he introduced NTS system in induction of teachers in education sector and later widened its scope to other departments. Mechanism of interview has also been made more transparent than before, he asserted.

Reciprocating the warm welcome by the people, Mr. Haider said that in view of the code of conduct of the election commission, he was not making formal announcements for the development and prosperity of the area but assured that he would not ignore this constituency which belongs to late Khan who always loved him.

Eulogizing Mr Nawaz Sharif, Farooq Haider said the former Pakistani premier laid a network of roads in Poonch through the financial assistance of Asian Development Bank and enhanced development budget of AJK from Rs11 billion to Rs23 billion.

He called upon the people of 14 polling stations, present on the occasion, to make sure that they vote again for PML-N candidate in the upcoming by-elections.

AJK Ministers Mushtaq Minhas, Barrister Iftikhar Gillani, Chaudhry Muhammad Aziz, Dy Speaker Sardar Farooq Tahir also addressed the public meetings.