GUJRAT: As many five candidates, namely four of the PML-N and one of the PML-Q, have filed their nomination papers for the slot of mayor of the Gujrat Municipal Corporation on the last day of submission of papers on Thursday.

The PML-N is yet to announce its candidate whereas the PML-Q has nominated Mian Pervez Akhtar Pagganwala for the slot. The polling is scheduled to be held on April 17.

Besides the PML-Q’s Pervez Pagganwala, those who have filed their nomination papers are the PML-N’s Zafar Rehmania, Tahir Manda, Mufeez Dar and Mehr Shafqat.

The nomination of Mr Pagganwala as the PML-Q candidate was announced by the PML-Q leader and Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi after consultation with the local party cadre on Wednesday.

The PML-N has been in consultation with the local cadre as well as its senior leadership and it has decided to let four members of the party file nomination papers initially and three of them would withdraw from the contest once the party decides its candidate.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had announced the schedule for the election of a new mayor for the Gujrat Municipal Corporation last week after the seat was notified as vacated as per the orders by the Supreme Court of Pakistan issued in December 2018.

The then mayor Haji Nasir Mahmood of the PML-N was disqualified by the apex court and Deputy Mayor Asif Mehmda, also from the PML-N, had become an acting mayor. The notification of deseating of Mr Mahmood as mayor and a chairman of union council No 3 Gujrat city was issued by the ECP on March 4, 2019, more than two months after the court decision.

The vice chairman of the said UC, Mehr Naeem Akhtar, has also been denotified by the ECP in the same notification and now by-election on both the slots of chairman and vice chairman will be held whose schedule is also yet to be issued.

Mehr Umar Sajid of the PML-Q had challenged the qualification of the PML-N’s candidate for the UC chairman Haji Nasir Mahmood in October 2015’s local bodies election since Mr Mahmood had already been disqualified as an MPA over a fake graduation degree by the election tribunal in February 2010 and he had also been booked and convicted by the court of law on the complaint of the regional election commissioner of Gujranwala.

However, Mr Mahmood was given permission by the apex court two days ahead of the polling in October 2015 but the case was decided in December 2018 whereas he had been elected as mayor Gujrat MC in December 2016.

The house of Gujrat MC is actually comprised of 21 members, including 12 directly elected UC chairmen and nine members elected on the reserved seats of technocrats, women, minority, youth and labour; however, after the disqualification of Mr Mahmood and resignation of Yousaf Gull in May 2018 to contest the general election the number of house members had been reduced to 19 with14 members of the PML-N, five of the PML-Q and one of the PTI.

It is learnt that the PTI has decided to support the PML-Q’s nominee and the ruling coalition claimed to have support of some PML-N members; however, the PML N has negated such reports.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2019