RAWALPINDI: As the tenure of the local government is expiring on Dec 31, Mayor Sardar Naseem Khan at the last session of the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) council said his Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) would come back in majority after the next elections.

Addressing the session, he said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif will return from London next year, and the party workers should work hard to win the next local government and general elections.

“I am asking you to prepare for the elections as the ruling PTI cannot win in Punjab due to its poor policies. You have already seen what happened in the first phase of the local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The fate of the PTI will be even worse in the second phase.”

Mr Khan said there were chances that the general elections would also be held next year so all the union council chairmen should be ready for it.

“Inflation, rising prices of petrol and edibles have made the people angry and the PML-N will come to power and put the economy in a right direction,” he said.

“Though we were allowed to work for only two years, we tried our best to deliver,” he said.

The mayor said the elected house had approved development schemes worth Rs2.31 billion for the garrison city but the Punjab government did not allow the local government to carry out more than eight per cent work on the projects.

“Despite all odds, we managed to allocate Rs80 million for graveyards, and spent Rs20 million on the purchase of funeral buses for the Rakh Dhamial graveyard.”

He said ministers and lawmakers belonging to Rawalpindi wanted to take credit for the development works in order to field their supporters in the upcoming local body elections. But the next local government elections would be a clear victory for the PML-N and the start of a new era of development in Rawalpindi, he added.

Ruling party union council chairman Azhar Iqbal Satti criticised the PTI government and announced his cooperation with the mayor.

The opposition union council chairmen offered Mr Satti to join the PML-N to which he said he would consider it.

Meanwhile, the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation approved five parking contracts worth Rs219 million which had been rejected in its session held in November.

In the last session, the elected house had also approved the removal of parking points from the gazette notification to stop collection of fees at six densely-populated parking spaces.

The mayor also laid the foundation of Jinnah Hall of the assembly.

He imposed a ban on vendors from installing stalls and pushcarts along Murree Road from Faizabad to Marrir Hassan Chowk.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2021