PESHAWAR, July 24: Political parties fielding panels for the forthcoming local council polls have no development programme and these are focusing only on seat-to-seat adjustment.
The political forces which are poles apart are sacrificing their ideology for bagging some seats by entering into accords even with groups which have hither to been their opponents. Some of the aspirants are propagating long-term agenda of their parties, but ignoring real issues.
Despite the fact that over two million people of the Peshawar city are facing soaring crimes, water shortage, environmental pollution, price hike, poor infrastructure, spread of slums, absence of town development planning and presence of a large number of Afghans, no party is giving priority to the vital issues.
People living in other 11 districts of the province are facing the same problems.
The Pakistan People’s Party and Jamaat-i-Islami which were sharing the top two offices of the nazim and naib nazim of the Peshawar city district could not impress the people of Peshawar during its four-year tenure.
Major political parties like the PPP, ANP Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl) and other groups have come up with different names to contest the local bodies’ polls in 12 districts.
The People’s Party Parliamentarian has fielded its candidates in 12 districts of the province with the name of ‘Awam Dost’ group, while the Awami National Party’s affiliated candidates are contesting polls from the ‘Watan Dost’ platform. Similarly, the Jamaat-i-Islami and JUI-F are taking part in the elections under the banner of the ‘Al Khaidmat’ group and ‘Muttahida’ group, but have not introduced their future programmes.
Making tall claims, provincial general secretary of the ANP Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that his party had always believed in serving humanity, therefore, its affiliated Watan Dost group would follow the same agenda.
PPP leaders claimed that their party wanted to reform the local government system, if the Awam Dost group won the polls.
The party’s provincial president, Rahim Dad Khan, made a self-contradictory statement saying that “the PPP will depoliticize the local government system and will resolve problems of the masses”.
He said that the Awam Dost panel would rid people of police highhandedness and red-tapism.
The Al Khaidmat group promised to address the problem of drinking water, sanitation and street-lights in Peshawar city.
Despite differences with the PPP, the Al Khaidmat group is negotiating for seat-to-seat adjustment with the Awam Dost group. The group has fielded 400 candidates in 85 union councils out of the total 92 in Peshawar district.