BAJAUR: The local body members here on Friday resented the failure of the local administration to invite them to the visits of ministers and high-ups to the districts and official events and warned that they would hold street protests if officials didn’t mend their ways.

They met in the Khar area here with tehsil council chairman Haji Said Badshah in the chair.

Besides scores of local body members, chairmen of several village and neighborhood councils also showed up to highlight their issues.

The participants complained that they’re ignored by the administration during the visits of ministers and high-ups to the district and other important events held by it or government departments.

They noted that many provincial ministers and senior officials made it to the district in the last several months.

Members of local bodies insisted that authorities didn’t invite them, including chairmen of the local bodies from Khar and Nawagai tehsils, to such visits and functions though local elders and political activists were in attendance there in large numbers.

They said that the administration’s conduct towards the elected members of local bodies was outrageous and was an insult to the people’s mandate given to them.

The participants claimed that the administration blocked their entry to such visits fearing they would apprise ministers and high-ups of the people’s main issues.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2023