LG elections: PML-N suffers ‘upset’ in Jhelum

Lose out district chairman seat to disgruntled faction led by Nawabzada Matloob Mehdi

JHELUM: Political in-fighting between different factions of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) cost the party the district chairman seat in Jhelum on Thursday.

However, the PML-N largely swept the elections in the district.

PML-N’s candidate, Hafiz Ejaz Janjua, lost the local government elections despite having support from two MNAs and four MPAs. He could only bag 24 votes while his opponent, independent candidate Raja Qasim – backed by the powerful Qasim group, coasted to victory.

Dr Bashir won the vice-chairman seat after bagging 34 votes. Polling stations were set up in the district council office and Town Municipal Administration (TMA) offices. Polling started at 9am and concluded at 2. There were 59 voters.

A large number of policemen and other security personnel were deployed to avert any untoward incident while members of the parliament were not allowed to enter the polling stations.

However, before polling started on Thursday morning, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) declared that they would boycott the elections. That boycott thus left the competition between PML-N and the breakaway faction represented by Qasim.

Talking to Roznama Express, Qasim said he won because of the intelligent planning and manoeuvring of Nawabzada Matloob Mehdi.

“PML-N’s MNAs, MPAs and regional leadership tried their best to make their candidate to win but failed,” Qasim said.

In the Municipal Committee elections, the main competition was between PML-N’s candidate Mirza Rashid and PTI’s Khadim Butt. The PML-N candidate won after bagging 35 votes to the latter’s nine votes.

In PD Khan Municipality, Malik Muhammad Mohsin and Sajjad Hussain Khawja won the chairman and vice chairman seats by respectively after bagging 15 votes against Chaudhry Intizarul Haq who could only secure nine votes.

In Khewra Municipality Malik Faisal Abbas and Malik Shaukat Hayat secured 24 votes to become chairman and vice chairman. Their opponents could only manage two votes.

(TRANSLATION BY ARSHAD SHAHEEN)

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2016.