ATTOCK, May 14:   Three new faces have been elected in the current elections from Attock, including the youngest Member of National Assembly (MNA) Mohammad Zain Elahi from NA-59.

In Attock district, there are a total of eight seats, including three National Assembly seats (NA- 57 to NA- 59) and five Provincial ones (from PP-15 to PP-19).

As per May 11’s unofficial results, three new lawmakers were elected; one from NA- 59 Attock-III and two from PP-17 Attock-III and PP-19 Attock-V.

Particularly, the 26-year-old Mohammad Zain Elahi was elected as an independent candidate from his father’s Major Group. He won the NA-59 seat with 60,284 votes, defeating the experienced PML-N’s Asif Ali Malik advocate who obtained 59,819 votes.

Mr Zain is the only son of ex-district nazim Major (Retired) Tahir Sadik Khan and also the PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s nephew.  He has for the first time contested the election with the support of his father and his Khattar Biraderi (clan).

Zain will be the youngest legislator in the 2013’s Assembly, and had recently completed his higher education in Global Management from United Kingdom.

Earlier Zain’s elder sister, Eman Waseem had been elected an MNA from the same constituency in 2002’s elections on the PML-Q ticket, but had later vacated her seat for the then Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, so that he could be elected in the 2004 by-elections.

In 2008, this seat was contested by Mr Zain’s brother-in-law Chaudhry Waseem Gulzar (spouse of Eman Waseem) from the PML-Q ticket but he lost to the PPP candidate Sardar Saleem Hyder.

Mr. Tahir, who was elected MPA from PP-15 in 1997, has lost from both NA-57 and NA-58 in the May 11 elections, but is happy on the success of his only son.

“Naturally, the loss has made me sad, but that has been compensated by my son’s victory, who also has the honour of being the youngest MNA in the coming assembly,” Mr Tahir said.

Another new face is Shahwaiz Khan, who won the election from PP-17 on the PML-N ticket. Earlier, he had been elected tehsil nazim Hasanabdal in 2004’s Local Body election.

The third new face is PML-N’s Malik Zafar Iqbal, who has been elected MPA from PP-19. He had the support of newly elected PML-N’s MNA from NA-58, Malik Itabar Khan. He had been elected as naib tehsil nazim in Jand tehsil in 2004’s Local Body elections.

The remaining five legislators in the constituency are old stalwarts and experienced parliamentarians.

The newly elected MNA from NA-58, Mr. Itabar, had been elected MPA from the PP-19 in 2008 elections, but this time he gave the opportunity to Mr. Zafar.

PML-N’s candidate from NA-57, Sheikh Aftab Ahmed, has been elected MNA for the fifth time and had begun politics in 1980.