Parties begin lobbying for Mardan district nazim office

MARDAN: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Awami National Party (ANP) and other parties have started making efforts to seek the office of district nazim that became vacant when Himayatullah Mayar resigned to contest for a provincial assembly seat in the 2018 general election.

District Naib Nazim Asad Ali has called the District Council meeting on August 9. PTI, ANP and its allied parties have started lobbying for the office of district nazim Mardan.

ANP has nominated Humayun Khan for the position, but the PTI hasn’t nominated anyone so far.

Acting District Nazim Asad Ali while talking to The News said that resignations of 10 district assembly members had already been approved as they contested the general election.

He added that currently the District Council has 100 members and according to the Act, simple majority means 57 members who would be needed for the election of the district nazim.

It may be noted that after the local government elections, ANP, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), JUI-F and Imran Shaheed Group had entered into an alliance to block the way of PTI from forming the district government in Mardan.

According to the agreement, the district nazim office was given to the ANP and district naib nazim was allotted to PPP, Takhtbhai tehsil nazim slot was given to Imran Shaheed Group and Katlang tehsil to the JUI-F.

It was stated in the agreement that after two years, those holding these positions would resign and candidates of the allied parties would be elected on rotation basis.

However, when the two-year period came to an end, the JUI-F accused ANP leaders of violating the agreement.

According to the agreement, the JUI-F candidate was to be elected as district nazim for the second half of the term. They said that the ANP district nazim had to resign on August 27, 2017 but Himayatullah Mayar was not willing to resign.

They said that the JUI-F nazim of Katlang and Takhtbhai nazim belonging to the Imran Shaheed Group had resigned as per the agreement.

Later, the JUI-F quit the alliance in the district council and sat on the opposition benches in the district assembly.

Himayatullah Mayar had rejected the allegations and said that JUI-F since the very beginning had also violated the agreement.

Himayatullah Mayar resigned from the office of district nazim when he was fielded by ANP to contest the election from PK-51 Mardan. However, he lost the election.