March 12, 2007	Monday	Safar 22, 1428

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FAISALABAD, March 11: Elections for city district council monitoring committees scheduled to be held on Monday (today) have been postponed after scores of its members and nazims have protested against the election process and alleged partiality of the election commissioner.

A meeting was held here on Sunday to devise the protest strategy against the pre-poll rigging. Nazims and house members, including Tahir Rasheed, Sheikh Yousaf, Rana Aftab Ahmed, Faiz Goga, minority member Habqooq, Ms Rabia Shehzad and Nusrat Kamoka, attended the meeting and vowed to fight for the rule of law.

They alleged that the election commissioner and convener Mian Amjad Yasin was making efforts to get elected his favourite nazims.

Scores of nomination papers filed by candidates were removed from the final list while names of such members were included who did not file their papers, they said and added that this was a clear example of malpractice.

For the boycott of elections, they said that nazims planned to set up a protest camp outside the Zila Council building.

Requesting anonymity, a nazim said that city district nazim Rana Zahid Tauseef had come to the meeting and held out his assurance for free and fair election. He said the district nazim announced the postponement of elections when angry nazims insisted on new schedule.

During the course of discussion in the meeting, nazims said the council meeting continued for a week, but members were not informed about the election of 36 monitoring committees of different departments.

They said members only came to know through newspapers about the strict schedule next day. However, members of surrounding areas remained unaware about the election schedule.

Following the schedule, they said members started filing their nomination papers, but the convener tried to sabotage the entire process only to get elected his desired members.

It may be mentioned that on the other day some 50 nazims and house members had threatened to move the high court against the alleged malpractices of the convener.

Rana Zahid confirmed that the elections were postponed for few days due to bad weather. He also admitted his participation in the meeting of nazims. “The house members and nazims are my wings and I could not ignore them”, he said.