Sardar Nasim most likely to be Lord Mayor of Rawalpindi

ISLAMABAD: Sardar Nasim is poised to be nominated by the top Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leadership as lord mayor of the Rawalpindi Metropolitan Corporation (RMC) because of his unwavering loyalty and commitment to the party in rain and shine for over three decades.

“Nasim meets all the qualifications to be picked up as our man for the top RMC slot,” a senior PML-N leader said. “All the federal and provincial legislators of Rawalpindi, who contested the December 5 local elections as a cogent team, fully support him for the position.”

The squad included Hanif Abbasi, Tahira Aurangzeb, Maryam Aurangzeb, Najma Hameed, Shakil Awan and others. The district saw no fissures in the ranks of the ruling party during these elections.

As per the general practice, the PML-N leadership also seeks the opinion and views of the federal and provincial lawmakers of the party belonging to the concerned district, metropolitan and city while selecting its nominees for senior berths.

Other PML-N leaders, who are in the run for the mayoral office of the RMC, are not known to have any steadfast and long affiliation with the party. Some of them jumped on the PML-N bandwagon some time back.

Because of the overall PML-N vote bank and the joint efforts of Rawalpindi’s federal and provincial legislators, and the candidates, who faced defeat in the 2013 general elections, the party had a clean sweep in the local polls, surprising, rather shocking, for many.

Sardar Nasim, belonging to the middle class and a man of modest means, who was elected as chairman of the Union Council (UC) 36, is the president of the PML-N Rawalpindi city for the past five years. Before that, he was its general secretary for twenty-eight years. During his over three-decade old association with the PML-N, he never dithered on his dedication to the party. He is the most senior leader of the party in Rawalpindi city.

He suffered two-year imprisonment during the ‘Tehreek-e-Nijat’ launched by Nawaz Sharif against the then Benazir Bhutto government. Besides, he was jailed for more than 25 times during Pervez Musharraf’s era for his political stand.

Sardar Nasim, along with Akhtar Rasool, Mian Mohammad Munir, Akhtar Mehmood, Chaudhry Tanvir and Tariq Aziz, all of them being federal and provincial lawmakers at the time, were sentenced by the Supreme Court for contempt of court in the 1997 case of storming the apex court at the height of confrontation between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah. A life ban was imposed on all of them to stand for any elected office.

As a result of this conviction, Sardar Nasim could not contest the 2002 and 2008 general elections. However, the 18th constitutional amendment, passed five years back, dispensed with this bar. Under the amended clause ‘g’ of Article 63, anybody convicted for defaming the judiciary, also including the contempt of court, will become eligible to contest an elected office five years after the completion of his term of imprisonment.

Sardar Nasim, who was elected as member of the Punjab Assembly in 1997 parliamentary polls but lost his provincial seat from the Rawalpindi city in 2013 elections, got the record lead in the present local government election when he was elected as the UC chairman.

While he faced the embargo, the Sharif brothers always wanted to accommodate him during their governments due to his unflinching faithfulness to the party. He also served as the honorary chairman of the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) and worked with the chief minister’s monitoring cell.

Unlike the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), where the PML-N presented itself as a house divided leading to relative unsatisfactory performance in the local elections, the Rawalpindi city and district saw complete unity in the ranks of the ruling party, which resulted in an outstanding show, unmatched in any part of Punjab.

Of the thirty-six Punjab districts, the PML-N is in a comfortable position to clinch top local offices in at least thirty-five areas. In Rahim Yar Khan where the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) fared better- courtesy former Governor Makhdoom Ahmed Mehmood- the ruling party can also manage to get the senior local positions with the help of independents should it take such a decision. At the same time, independent winners will also have a big say in Attock and Chakwal.

Like some other metropolitans and district councils, in Rawalpindi too anybody nominated by the PML-N will easily return as the mayor or chairman as it faces no formidable challenge from any side due to its commanding numerical strength.

With the first-ever protracted local elections, spanning five weeks, over, the jockeying to secure the top positions of the local governments is in full swing. Chief Minister Shahbaz Sahrif obviously holds the key as he heads the committee that will select the PML-N candidates after interviewing all the aspirants. He is likely to face a tough job in Faisalabad where the two party factions, lethally opposed to each other, are struggling to get the office of the mayor for their choices.