AJK elections: UK city mayor campaigns for education promotion

Motivates people to bring change through ballot

MUZAFFARABAD: As general elections draw closer, potential candidates and activists have started the campaign in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

Potential candidates are striving to approach voters to win their hearts as well as a seat in the state legislative assembly.

The elections will be held in coming summer.

Kashmiris from abroad have started arriving in their native areas to motivate voters to vote for honest and clean candidates in the forthcoming elections.

Councillor Mohammad Hanif, Mayor of High Wycombe in the United Kingdom (UK), is also on a mission to motivate people of his native Dadyal town of Mirpur district to ‘vote for education promotion.’

“The slogan ‘one community’ unites us in Wycombe to focus on positive things,” he says while sharing his motto and slogan with The Expressing Tribune.

“I want to remind the people in the area to bring change through the ballot in coming elections. I want to motivate them to vote only for those candidates who want to promote education,” Hanif added.

When asked why he was meeting people on the agenda of education only while avoiding health and other civic issues, the mayor said that developed countries like the UK still have education on the priority number one to three.

“I was deeply shocked to see the low standard of education in AJK,” he added.

The mayor further appealed all AJK natives who are living in the UK and other European countries to come back for a while to campaign for education, good governance and corruption-free politics.

Hanif migrated to the UK in the 80s. He did his graduation from Thames Valley University and got a job at British Petroleum (BP). He was heading a team of eight scientists and was recruiting scientist for BP. Having completed his 25 years service, he retired as BP manager and started taking part in the UK politics.

He joined Labour Party and became mayor of High Wycombe in March 2015. He believes in the joint family system.

The mayor besides providing services in housing and dealing with issues related to the environment in his district is also helping volunteer organisations to get funds for improving their profile.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 2^nd, 2016.