Daily Times

DIR: Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) Upper Dir chapter on Thursday said that the district council of Upper Dir and tehsil council of Dir are deliberately delaying in elections on vacant district and teshil seats due to which developmental projects in those union councils had stopped.

Addressing a press conference in Dir the General Secretary (GS) Naveed Khan Shaheen, Atiqur Rehman, Samiullah, Shahidullah and others said that the Chukiatan UC seat of district council had been vacant for almost one year similarly seats of tehsil Dir council are also falling vacant after the death of Zahir Shah alias Adil and Mian Rustam Yousif for a long time. Naveed Shaheen said that one of the vacant seats is the naib nazim seat of tehsil council of Dir and thus the council summits are being run without the convener.

He said that the district election office of Upper Dir, district government of Dir Upper and teshil government of Dir, assistant director local government Upper Dir were doing a ‘deliberate delay’ in holding in by-election on those vacant seats.

He said that the Jomaat-e-Islami and PPP are terrified from the popularity of the PTI in Upper Dir and were feeling fear in by-election due to which both of the parties were hesitating from holding election. The PTI district GS said that according to the local government act holding of by-election must be conducted within sixty days [two months]. And Gul Amin member district council passed away on April 5, 2016 similarly Zahir Shah had passed away on July18, 2016 and their seats are still vacant and the election commission had yet to announce elections on those vacant seats. “District election office Upper Dir, district and tehsil governments are putting responsibility on each other of the delaying in election on these seats,” Naveed Shaheen alleged.

He said that the most important seat of the naib nazim of Dir tehsil council is also fall vacant for a very long time because thenaib nazim Mian Rustam Yousif was absent from the council meetings due to his illness and after that from his demise.

He said that the district and tehsil governments were pressing the issues and problems of the people and areas instead of highlighting and solving it. He said that the motive and slogan of the provincial minister for local government to solve the problems of people to their doorsteps in local government system went in vain.

Atiqur Rehman said that due to not holding of by-elections in those UCs its fund was not utilizing and thus the people of those UCs were being kept deprived from developmental projects.

They said that PTI Upper Dir demanded of the district election commission of Pakistan, district government of Upper Dir, tehsil Dir government, DC Upper Dir ministry of local government of KP to announce immediately by-elections on those vacant seats otherwise they would protest against it and bring out people to streets if announcement was not done in a week.