MANSEHRA: Differences in the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has provided the Awami National Party with an opportunity to install own government in Torghar district following the disqualification of the district nazim of the former by the Local Government Commission of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The development comes as the LG commission rejected the plea of nazim Noor Mohammad of the PTI to review the verdict of disqualifying him by declaring no-confidence proceedings against him in line with the Local Government Act 2013.

The review petition was filed in November last year.

With the support of the ANP, PTI disgruntled councillors led by Dilroz Khan had moved a no-confidence motion against own district nazim Noor Mohammad in March last year.

After the nazim questioned the legality of the voting on the motion, the Torghar assistant director (local government) moved the LG commission in August for opinion on whether the vote cast by the council’s acting convener against the nazim was valid.

LG commission rejects PTI nazim’s plea for review of disqualification

The commission declared the non-trust proceedings valid and disqualified the nazim, who later filed a review plea with it.

The ANP is likely to form the next government in the district as it has eight members in the 23-strong council with the support of the PTI’s disgruntled group comprising eight councillors.

Overall, the PTI has 11 members in the district council but only three of them support Noor Mohammad.

ANP provincial president Ameer Haider Khan Hoti has stopped party councillors from supporting the PTI.

“Our party leadership has a clear message for us: don’t make any sort of alliance with the PTI. We’ll field own candidate for the district nazim’s election,” ANP press secretary Azizur Rehman told reporters here on Friday.

He said the ANP would contact the JUI-F for the formation of district government if the leadership issued directives for it.

He however said it would be premature to say anything in this respect at this stage.

Leader of PTI disgruntled group and contender for the nazim’s slot Dilroz Khan claimed six ANP, two JUI-F and eight PTI councillors supported him to install the PTI government in the district.

“Our group, which consists of ANP councillors, too, has chosen me as the candidate for the office of the district nazim. The office of the naib nazim will be given to the ANP,” he said.

Mr. Dilroz said the LG commission had written to the provincial EC to finalise arrangements for the elections and therefore, the schedule for it was likely to be announced soon.

CURRENT LG SYSTEM HAILED: Senior provincial minister Inayatullah Khan has claimed that the current local government system of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is far better than the one introduced by former president Pervez Musharraf in the country.

“Not only have we introduced such a local government system that is more public-friendly but we’ve also granted local bodies more funds than those given in the Musharraf era,” minister told a meeting of local government representatives here at the district council on Friday.

The minister said the provincial government wanted to address the people’s problems at grassroots level and therefore, it was giving more and more funds to the local bodies.

“We (KP government) have released Rs15 billion to local governments in a year compared Rs9 billion given to such bodies during Musharraf’s 10 years,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2017