RAWALPINDI: The district administration may have been lenient towards the ruling PML-N with regards to the party’s violation of a ban on posters - advertising a public meeting on August 13 - on the pillars of the elevated metro bus track from Saddar to Faizabad.

Posters depicting the Sharif brothers, put up not by individuals but by the party’s local chapter, can be seen on the pillars of the track from Saddar to Faizabad. The Metro Bus Authority, City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) and Rawal Town Municipal Authority (RTMA) have previously registered cases against people for posting advertisements on the pillars, as the practice has been banned by the government.

However, the local administration appears to have given the PML-N a free hand.

Posters put up a couple of days ago have not been removed, and no action has been taken against the violators.

The PML-N is holding a public meeting on August 13 to counter the Awami Muslim League (AML) president Sheikh Rashid Ahmed’s traditional public meeting at Lal Haveli, a few yards from the PML-N’s offices on Iqbal Road near Bohar Bazaar Chowk.

Sheikh Rashid alleges PHA, RDA putting up posters for ruling party meeting themselves

Sheikh Rashid told Dawn that officials from the RTMA, the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) and the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) had been the ones to put up the PML-N posted. He claimed AML’s posters and banners were also being removed by civic bodies.

“All the government machinery became active to make the ruling party’s show successful in the city, which meant, just to make my public meeting a failure. The PML-N is afraid of the people’s resentment over the Panama leaks issue, and it involved all the government machinery to help it organise the event,” he said.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) MPA Arif Abbasi told Dawn the local administration also removed banners and posters of Imran Khan near the PTI offices, but had failed to remove the illegal banners on the metro track pillars.

“The country has become the [state] of the [Sharif family], it has [parallel] laws, one for the common man and one for the Sharif brothers,” he said.

He said the PTI had raised the people’s problems in the Punjab Assembly, but the ruling party did not respond and no efforts have been made to far to resolve these problems.

“The local administration is working directly under the Sharif family instead of under the law and the Constitution,” he said.

Former MNA Hanif Abbasi was not available for comment despite repeated attempts. When contacted, Rawal Town Administration Nazia Parveen Sudhan said she was unaware of PML-N posters being put up on the elevated metro bus track’s pillars, and added that she has asked officials to look into the matter.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2016