Ghanche Halqa Two: Changing heads or changes in the course of action?

Muhammad Irfan Chourbati 

District Ghanche is the remotest out of the seven districts in Gilgit Baltistan with an approximate of one lac (100,000) people. During the last five years of political transformation the Ghanche constituency number two has seen several changes in its political realm. The Ghanche Halqa two was among the only two constituencies where Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) won its only seat for Gilgit Baltistan Legislative Assembly (GBLA) in form of late Mufti Abdullah. Mufti Abdullah emerged as a popular figure in the whole District because of his religious background and past services for the society. After getting into power late Mufti Abdullah couldn’t manage to deliver the society due to his lack of experience in public policy designing, bad health conditions and also due to absence of support from provincial government being sitting on the opposition benches in the Legislative Assembly.  After three years of representation he had a natural death in Islamabad and the whole constituency remained quite unrepresented in the provincial affairs of GB. Though Mrs. Amina Ansari a lady from PML-Q nominated as technocrat after losing elections against Late Mufti Abdullah from the same constituency in the current assembly appeared much busy in media rhetoric’s rather than looking into the matters of the constituency. For a long time by-elections remained delayed due to instability in provincial political arena. Then in the late 2013 by-elections were conducted and after so many political confusions and lobbying, once again the District President PML-N Sultan Ali Khan successfully took over the seat by winning majority votes. During the political campaigns the PML-N remained dominated in doing promises of social and infrastructural development for the constituency.

Chief coordinator of PML-N Hafiz Hafeez-ur-Rehman visited the area, beside many other announcements he promised to endorse 100 million rupees for the development of the area from Prime Minister’s especial fund if their candidate gets successful in the by-election.

Almost half year has been passed after the by-elections but no satisfactory changes have been yet observed in the region. The District General Hospital Khaplu is still in pity conditions, the schools of the constituency are still in the same situation where it once used to be and no development in infrastructure has been observed. This is the second time the people of the District Ghanche Halqa two have shown their trust in PML-N government but the promises still proved as lip service to gain public fame during the elections.

Only few months have left for the elections of GBLA before which the interim government will take over the government of the whole province, in such circumstances the party holding the status quo and other figures representing the area must think of full filling their promises and solve the problems of the region to regain their confidence in public.

It is time for PML-N provincial hierarchy to look into the matters of the constituency so that by introducing solid measures of development, the party can achieve trust in the whole region of GB that they can deliver what they promised, otherwise public is much aware of the PPP’s reign in GB and their promises before elections. It also becomes the political responsibility of the elected representatives that they should work for the betterment and prosperity of the region because people have trusted in them thinking that they will not repeated the old fashion.

A person showing anonymity said that; “All the political figures were visiting the villages doing fake promises and telling the people that; If I were chosen to represent you, I will devote my self for the betterment of people but elections have gone and not even a single political figure seems around us to ask about our conditions, our families are suffering because of the unavailability of proper facilities.”

The contributor is an undergrad student of Politics and International Relations at the IIU, Islamabad. He can be reached at irfanchourbati@gmail.com