BAHAWALPUR: Thirty-four candidates belonging to various political parties are in the run for the five seats of Bahawalpur Cantonment Board (CB).

The ruling coalition partners Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) are flexing their muscles to outsmart each other in the Sept 12 polling. The PPP and the PML-N are also contesting the election.

This is for the first time that PML-Q general secretary Tariq Bashir Cheema has fielded his candidate in the city’s area of Cantonment Board. Earlier, he had been doing his politics in his Yazman tehsil from where he contested elections during the previous years. Cheema is interested in city’s politics after 2005 when he had completed his two terms of district nazim during Gen Musharraf’s rule.

Political observers believe that federal minister Cheema’s role in the CB election could be part of negotiations at the highest level between his party and the PTI. They feel Cheema may switch to city in the next general election and in that case introduce his son at Yazman where PML-N has a strong candidate -- former senator Saood Majid Chaudhry.

A tough contest is expected among the mainstream parties for the five seats of the CB.

DIES: Ms Maureen O’ Tool, a former principal of St Dominican School, Bahawalpur, died here on Sunday. She was 86.

She was a Sparkill Dominican Missionary who came to Pakistan in 1969 and served in Bahawalpur, Multan and Loreto. Her funeral was held at St Dominican Church, Bahawalpur.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2021