RAWALPINDI: That the local leaders are lobbying for securing party tickets to reserved seats of the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) for their relatives,

workers of the ruling party have expressed resentment and dissatisfaction at being ignored in the upcoming elections.

For the 10 seats reserved for women in RMC, two each for technocrats, labour and minorities and a seat for youth, three leaders have given in the names of their relatives.

PML-N City President Sardar Naseen’s son, Sardar Gohar will now be contesting for the youth seat and former MPA Ziaullah Shah’s two sisters and a relative of MPA Advocate Raja Hanif will also be contesting on reserved seats.

This has stirred unrest among the workers of the ruling party who feel discriminated against.

A PML-N worker in Raja Bazaar, Mohammad Kashif said: “All the seats will be filled by the local leaders and their families and the workers will not get the same chance”.

Local workers feel discriminated against, say leaders promoted their relatives in NA and Senate as well

He said the same had been witnessed in the national assembly and in the senate where seats were filled by family members and gave the example of mother and daughter Begum Tahira Aurangzeb and Maryam Aurangzeb, who are both MNA’s. he added that Begum Tahira Aurangzeb’s sister Najma Hameed is also senator on a reserved seat from Rawalpindi.

Another worker of the party, Mohammad Kamran said the party’s leaders had lobbied in Lahore for the issuing of tickets to their relatives instead of accommodating workers like Razia Appa, who had been to jail for the party in Musharraf’s tenure.

The worker added that there was no difference in the ruling party and PML-Q because the leaders of both parties prefer accommodating their relatives instead of giving workers a fair chance.

A senior party leader told Dawn some workers had gone to Lahore to get the party’s ticket and had expressed their dissatisfaction over the performance of the local leadership.

He said more than 40 women had applied for the party’s tickets and that these applications had been modified by the local chapter, forcing more than half of them to withdraw their applications. He said the party’s local leadership had placated them with positions in the union councils.

These women, he said, were not interested in becoming members of union councils and had said doing so would be a waste of time.

However, former PML-N MNA Malik Shakil Awan maintained that there was no unrest among the workers because all such decisions were taken by the party’s Punjab chapter, not the local one and that all workers were happy to accept decisions made by the party.

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2016