Three candidates to vie for Rawalpindi Mayor’s seat

Rawalpindi

The elections on special seats of local bodies for Rawalpindi are likely to be held in mid of August and it would be followed by the mayoral election, ‘The News’ learnt through credible sources.

The local bodies elections were held in December 2015 to elect chairman and members of the 46 union councils of the metropolitan. The PML-N won 35 seats while independents, Jamaat-e-Islami, Awami Muslim League and the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf shared the remaining seats. The independent candidates then joined the platform of PML-N which raised the majority of seats of this party to 39 in Rawalpindi.

Now the election of Mayor of Rawalpindi would be contested by three candidates namely former MPA Sardar Naseem, Shaikh Arslan and former deputy Nazim of Rawalpindi Sajjad Khan. Tough competition is expected among them.

Sajjad Khan has served as deputy nazim of Rawal Town during the government of Ch Pervaiz Elahi in Punjab. He remained in contact with the people of Rawalpindi as deputy nazim.

Sardar Naseem has served as MPA in the previous government of Nawaz Sharif and being president of Metropolitan city at present has managed to start development works in Rawalpindi city.

When questioned about his chances, Sardar Naseem candidly said all the three candidates belong to the PML-N and whoever was elected would not make any difference. “Our motto should be to serve the people in a right way and enforce development schemes in Metropolitan,” he opined.

Shaikh Arslan, who was elected as chairman of Satellite Town, F-Block, in local bodies elections in December last year claimed support of union council members to become Mayor of Rawalpindi.

Arslan during an informal chat with this correspondent also claimed of having the support of party leadership besides the backing of Hanif Abbasi and Malik Abrar. He said he wanted to serve the citizens of Rawalpindi.