OPINIONS Municipal Election In Azad Kashmir: The current government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, based in Azad Kashmir, had written in its election manifesto before coming to power that its government would hold local elections in Azad Kashmir.
They included the current secretary general of the party, Raja Mansoor, and the former central information secretary, Irshad Mahmood. Even before joining PTI, Irshad Mahmood was running a campaign in favor of local body elections and was able to gather the leadership of various political parties on one platform a draft was prepared which was signed by the representatives of all the political parties involved in the race for power.
Earlier, the majority of PTI organizational officials agreed that holding local elections in Azad Kashmir was the only way to solve the problems. It was fortunate that after PTI came to power, the first Prime Minister Abdul Qayyum Niazi. Those who were themselves part of the local government system and are the fruits of this system.
They set the priorities of the party manifesto and pledged that they will remove all the obstacles in the way of the municipal elections and conduct the elections. After he was removed from power by his own party, the new Prime Minister Tanveer Ilyas also expressed the same commitment, so after thirty-two years local elections were held in Azad Kashmir in which the current Prime Minister also plays a major role because none of the political parties of Azad Kashmir, including more than ninety percent of the members of the assembly, including members of the PTI, were in favor of local elections in Azad Kashmir and the transfer of power to the lower level or Alternative youth political leadership emerged.
When the current local elections were held after thirty-two years, another unique thing that happened was that special seats were allocated for farmers, workers, youth, and women, after which the impression of representation from every sector emerged. Political parties, especially Pakistan Peoples Party Azad Kashmir also issued tickets to women to participate in direct elections and a PPP ticket holder was successful in one seat of Rawalkot Corporation.
Kashmir stood in first place which elected its district chairman in seven out of ten districts, Pakistan Muslim League-N Azad Kashmir took second place while Pakistan Peoples Party Azad Kashmir won third place.
Among the national parties, Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Party (JKPP) ) stood first, despite holding only one seat in the Legislative Assembly, and managed to make its own mayor in the Municipal Corporation Rawalakot.
The candidates of the parties succeeded in some areas as independents by hiding the identity of “Jamaat” and later became allies of other parties.
Thus, in the context of state parties, the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Party (JKPP) is the only party. Which not only maintained its identity, importance, and existence but also provided the organizational workers with the impetus to struggle for many years. He should try to remove the concerns and accusations that were made against him in the past. Perhaps other parties do not have more resources than him to solve the problems of the city and provide facilities to the citizens, because the seat of the urban constituency is also theirs. He has the majority support of his neighbors.
But above all these things, he has the atmosphere of trust that he has received from the three major political parties. Leaving behind the bitterness of the past, everyone has to walk together.
Among the major problems facing the city of Rawalakot at present is the shifting of depots of public service vehicles from the city to other districts and outside Azad Kashmir to the bus terminal at Mittal Meera, before entering the city for transport running on local routes. Reasonable parking, removal of encroachments and activation of the Corporation’s mapping department for new constructions, reasonable parking around the main roads of the city, and concrete measures to keep the city clean. These are the problems without addressing which no city government will be able to provide relief to the citizens. Thus the limits of the Municipal Corporation Rawalakot are quite large but at a time when the Development Authority (PDA) is complete If he is inactive and does not have the capacity to work, the responsibility of the city government increases and he has to fulfill his responsibilities in a good way.
By passing through the election grudges, full cooperation should be given to the newly elected city government so that this city which is The center of other districts of Azad Kashmir and the divisional headquarters of Poonch can become a model city and the citizens living in this city can get the same facilities as other cities.
