Accused of sparking rifts: No-trust move against RCB vice-president likely today

Elected, unelected members of the board are at odds with each other

RAWALPINDI: Elected members of the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) are all set to move no-confidence motion against the board vice president on Monday.

Meanwhile, backdoor efforts are simultaneously also in full swing to resolve the issue amicably through mediation from local Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Eleven out of total 12 elected members of the RCB have decided to move the no-confidence motion against the RCB Vice President, Raja Jahandad, as they have been unhappy and dissatisfied with his conduct and performance.

Before deciding to take the no-confidence motion forward, the elected members have earlier asked Jahandad to step down or they would force him out of the office of the vice president.

All elected members were unhappy with the vice president saying Jahandad’s behaviour had antagonised the RCB administration and the officials had not been willing to do works asked by the elected members.

They had held the vice president responsible for strains in relations between the elected members and the RCB administration.

“We have been upset by the behaviour of Raja Sahib. We asked him to mend his ways time and again but it proved of no use. It is not becoming of the vice president to use abusive language in a board meeting where female officials were also present,” said a senior member of the RCB.

The elected member, while preferring anonymity said that residents of the cantonment board areas had been knocking at the offices of the elected members for solution to their problems for sometime now.

The vice president, on the other hand, had not been serious enough to take up different issues with the RCB administration.

The member further said that they were eager to oust Jahandad from his office, and they would soon elect a new vice president.

It may also be mentioned here that Jahandad with the help of Raja Irfan Imitaz, vice president of the Chaklala Cantonment Board had started using backdoor channels to stop the members from tabling the no-confidence motion before the board’s president.

Sources in the RCB revealed to this scribe that the PML-N Senator, Chaudhry Tanveer Ahmed, was of the opinion that the matter be resolved amicably and the no-confidence motion against Jahandad be dropped.

The senator had asked the Chaklala Cantonment Board vice president to mediate and get the matters resolved.

Meanwhile, Jahandad has been accusing Malik Abrar Ahmed Khan, a PML-N MNA from cantonment area, of encouraging the elected members to rise up against him.

Source said that Jahandad however enjoyed the confidence of both Chaudhry Tanveer and Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan as he was very old and senior PML-N leader from the Rawalpindi cantonment.

The source, while commenting on the future situation said that if the no-confidence motion succeeded, there were two prominent persons who could takeover as RCB vice president.

Hussain Ahmed Malik will be the strongest candidate for the next vice president as he had always won from his ward in the cantonment, and had served as vice president in the past, the source said.

He added that the second best candidate would be Zafar Iqbal who was elected from his ward with an overwhelming lead on his opponent.

Iqbal is said to enjoy confidence of his area voters as well as support from MNA Malik Abrar.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2016.