According to the new delimitation, the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) will comprise 46 union councils (which are urban areas of the district). The total strength of the District Council will be 120 union councils from the rural areas of Rawalpindi district.
Under the new local government set up, the District Council will be the elected body of the public representatives from rural areas while the RMC will be the elected body for the urban areas.
These 14 union councils, which have now been made part of the rural district council, are part of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan’s constituency, NA-52. They were declared urban areas in 2013, shortly before the general elections.
These union councils include areas such as Shakrial, Morgah, Dhama Syedan, Dhamial, Kotha Kalan, Lakhan, Rehmatabad and Chak Jalaldin. These areas include upper middle class residential areas such as Bahria Town, Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Chaklala Scheme-III extension, Lalazar and others.
Upper middle class residential areas such as Bahria Town, DHA, Chaklala Scheme-III extension, and Lalazar have been included in the rural part of the district
An observer, who didn’t want to be named, pointed out that the PML-N feels that voters in these areas would choose PTI over the ruling party in the local government elections.
The Punjab government imposed a property tax in these 14 union councils from the fiscal year 2013-14 – a tax that is only applicable in urban areas.
This tax is not paid by the nearby 22 union councils, which are seen to be rural areas.
The move to declare these 14 councils rural has attracted considerable criticism from the opposition political parties.
Former District Nazim Raja Tariq Kiani, who is also a member of the PTI, said that the new delimitation would create administrative problems.
When asked what he meant, he argued that the 14 union councils which had now been declared rural will no longer get a share of the funds released by provincial government for development schemes in the cities. “The rural areas traditionally get fewer funds than urban areas,” he said.
“We will approach the courts to right this wrong,” he said.
PPP City Chapter spokesman Shujaat Haider Naqvi said that the PPP would decide whether or not it would object to the delimitation, which favoured the ruling party. He added that this decision would be made by the local level leadership.
He said that under Musharraf, Rawalpindi’s local government was divided into two towns, Rawal and Potohar, to accommodate Sheikh Rashid Ahmed’s nephew and Raja Basharat’s brother-in-law.
“And, again, the present ruling party PML-N wanted to accommodate different groups by creating two main positions – the mayor of Rawalpindi and the Chairman of the District Council,” he said.
“All union councils should now be declared urban and made part of the RMC,” he said.
A former district president and a PTI MPA currently, Arif Abbasi, told Dawn that the residents of the 14 union councils should be included in RMC instead of the District Council.
He said that the residents were paying taxes but because of the change in status, they will no longer get the benefits enjoyed by other residents who lived in different parts of the city.
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