AJK PM to host new heads of local govts.

MUZAFFARABAD -- Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas will host a grand reception in honour of the newly-elected heads of the local government (LG) institutions on Wednesday.

Keeping in view the convenience of the elected office-holders, including the chairmen and vice chairmen of district council, union councils, municipal and town committees as well as mayors and deputy mayors of municipal corporations in all 10 districts of the state, Convention Centre Islamabad had been chosen as the venue of the function, said Raja Sabeel Riaz, prime minister's political assistant for youth affairs, on Sunday.

Local government (LG) polls in Azad Kashmir were held last year after a gap of more than three decades, after prolonged proceedings on the issue in superior courts that culminated in a categorical direction by the AJK Supreme Court to the government and Election Commission in this regard.

Though the unavailability of security forces from Pakistan to maintain law and order amid a visible polarisation had apparently made the fate of these polls uncertain till the last moment, the determination of Prime Minister Ilyas to conduct the exercise did not slacken at any moment, something his political peers, including those in opposition, also concur with.

'When even his own cabinet members appeared to be in a quandary vis-a-vis LG polls, the prime minister kept on assuring people that they will be provided their long overdue right to elect their local representatives as per the vision of PTI...