Beadon Road: ‘Our vote goes to whoever can get us ownership of land’

Butt is contesting the election for the first time but, says his family has been associated with the PML-N since 1979

LAHORE:

Access to safe drinking water is a major problem for the residents of Union Council 62.

Faheem Abbas, a resident, says the government needs to install filtration plants so that people have access to safe drinking water.

He says the commercial areas of Beadon Road do not have the problem of low hanging electricity wires, “but once you go into the residential areas, the wires hang so low they are an accident waiting to happen”.

Maqsood Ahmed, a resident of Rattan Bagh, a katchi abadi near Mayo Hospital, says, “Our only demand is the right to own the land we live on…we will vote for whoever can fight for ownership rights for us.” He says they did not believe that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government could give them this right. “This is Nawaz Sharif’s area…he has done nothing to accord us ownership of this land.”

Ahmed says he would vote for the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf. “We have discussed this matter with the PTI’s candidate for councillor…He has promised to raise our issues at other platforms.”

PML-N’s candidate for chairman Arif Hameed Butt says people were mistaken if they thought the PTI would solve any of their issues. “We have the government at the centre …we have the power to solve people’s problems.”

Butt is contesting the election for the first time but he says his family has been associated with the PML-N since 1979.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 28^th, 2015.