December 18, 2006	Monday	Ziqa'ad 26, 1427

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MULTAN, Dec 17: The treatment meted out to Muzaffargarh by the chief minister ridicules his claims of allocating a lot of funds for south Punjab, says Muzaffargarh District Nazim Sardar Qayyum Jatoi.

Mr Jatoi was stopped from holding the session of the district council on Saturday when police locked the building and manhandled pro-Jatoi nazimeen.

Talking to Dawn via telephone on Sunday, Mr Jatoi said that stopping elected representatives from holding the session was tantamount to damaging democracy and the chief minister was responsible for the situation.

Mr Jatoi said that he saluted union council nazimeen who despite being implicated and arrested in many cases had stood by him. He said the Pakistan Muslim League had no roots among the people and if President Pervez Musharraf stopped mentoring it, the Chaudhris would lose elections even in Gujrat.

He said that the bureaucracy was not cooperating with him to run the affairs of the district government at the behest of the chief minister.

He said that only three district nazimeen out of 110 in the country were from the opposition parties but the government was not even ready to tolerate them. He said the chief minister had asked him to join the PML and his refusal had worsen the affairs as the chief minister, in turn, stopped all kind of funds to the district.

District Naib Nazim Syed Ali Raza Shamsi said that Saturday’s district assembly session was unconstitutional as only he was authorised to call the session.

He said the mater of budget session was in the Lahore High Court. He said although the court had not stayed the calling of a session, he did not call the session because mater related to the budget could be discussed by the members.