MULTAN, April 16: Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi will spend a busy day here in Multan on Thursday (today).

Meetings at the circuit house with local parliamentarians, local office-bearers of the PML-Q and allied parties, traders, lawyers, administrative and police officials posted at six districts of former Multan division are on the agenda.

Over and above, he will also inaugurate a new terminal of the local general bus stand completed by the city tehsil administration at a cost of Rs85 million. Later, he will proceed to Shujaabad where he is scheduled to kick off a wheat harvesting campaign and address a public gathering at Naseerpur village.

The chief minister will be welcomed here by acting Multan District Nazim and DCO Maj Azam Suleman (retired).

The Multan district government is the only district in the country which is being led by an unelected serving civil bureaucrat.

The District Nazim’s slot had become vacant after Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi resigned to contest the general election. The DCO was made acting district Nazim despite opposition by the district council. The house even asked to nominate a member of the house for the interim period till the elections of a new district Nazim.

The acting Nazim has also proved that apprehensions of the district council were not out of place as he has not so far attended even a single session of the house.

PML-Q sources say the chief minister is likely to decide about the ‘official’ candidate for the top district slot during his visit. They say the dilemma of the party is the house (district council) which is difficult to handle in the presence of dominance by pro-PPP elements.

Besides, they say, the defection by local PML-N MNA Diwan Jaffer in the centre has made it more difficult to bring in a consensus candidate. The MNA is pushing his brother Diwan Ashiq as candidate for the slot while the party has its own candidates — Shaukat Noon and City Tehsil Nazim Mian Faisal Mukhtar, they say.

The other issues likely to surface during the CM’s visit are the proposed Multan Institute of Cardiology (MIC), Children Hospital Complex and civic amenities.

Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool had announced MIC last year and then District Nazim Shah Mehmood Qureshi decided to house the institute in the commissioner’s house on Abdali Road.

The Health department had also the proposed MIC building plan made, but suddenly the project hit snags owing to the bureaucratic bottlenecks. The civil bureaucracy was opposed to the idea since it was floated by the district government. The bureaucracy’s hidden agenda had reportedly been to construct an official colony on the premises for top officials posted at Multan.

However, recently a reported NRB-sponsored idea to set up regional coordination offices in Rawalpindi and Multan to devolve the office of provincial chief secretary has given another opportunity to the local bureaucracy to oppose the construction of MIC at the commissioner’s house.

It is being said that the regional chief coordination officer will set up his office at the old commissioner’s house. Now, the Health department authorities are reportedly directed to shift the cardiology institute to the site of abandoned GTS bus stand at Dera Adda Chowk.