SHANGLA: The residents of Kana Pir Khana union council here on Monday linked their participation in the next general elections to provision of basic facilities to them.

They made the announcement at a jirga attended by a large number of local elders and social activists.

The participants said that the union council, especially its Naredaly village council, had been deprived of basic amenities of life.

“We will not participate in the next general polls if our core issues are not resolved immediately. Our area lacks education and health facilities,” Shams-ur Rehman, a social activist, lamented.

He said serious patients, particularly women, children and elderly, had to be taken to hospitals on beds because there was no road to the area. Aziz ur Rehman, an elder, said political leaders got votes from them by making false commitments and then disappeared only to emerge in the next elections. “We will not tolerate further discrimination and injustice, and will fight for our basic rights,” he vowed.

Rehman said the elected representatives had failed to build a three-kilometre Larai-Naredaly road to ease the suffering of the residents.

UPLIFT PROJECTS: Special assistant to chief minister on tourism Abdul Munim has claimed that the PTI government has carried out record development in Shangla district. He was speaking at a public meeting at Koz Paw Deraan Sar in Puran on Monday.

On the occasion, several of workers of ANP and PML-N announced joining the PTI. Mr Munim said the provincial government was focusing on the underprivileged districts for development.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2018