ATTOCK: Hundreds of candidates belonging to different political parties and independents on Thursday submitted nomination papers for the local government elections scheduled to be held on January 30.

A great hustle and bustle was witnessed outside the offices of the returning officers in all the tehsils of Attock where the intending aspirants thronged along with their supporters a day before the last date for the nomination papers.

This time, a majority of the candidates belonged to Pakistan Tehrik-i- Insaf, (PTI), PML-N, and independent Major Group led by former district nazim Tahir Sadik Khan.

There were a very few PPP candidates. The PPP received a serious setback in the May 11 elections in the district.

However, sources said senior PPP leader Malik Hakmeen Khan had convened a meeting of the party’s local leaders at his resident on Friday to devise a strategy to take part in the local government elections at least from major areas.

Assistant commissioners have been appointed ROs of the municipal committees of urban areas of the six tehsils - Attock, Hazro, Pindigheb, Hasanabdal, Fatehjang and Jand.

The executive district officer (EDO) community is the RO of the 72 union councils of the district and is receiving nominations for the UC chairmen, vice-chairmen and general, women, labourer, peasant and minorities seats.

As per the election schedule, after the completion of the first process of filing nominations on Dec 27, objections over the candidates’ nomination papers will be heard on December 29 and the scrutiny of the papers will take place from December 30 to January 4. The electoral body will issue the final list of the candidates on January 13 and the same day electoral symbols will be allocated.

Some political parties and groups have arranged experts to support and guide their candidates in correctly filing the nomination forms. There were also a large number of independent candidates who filed the nomination papers. A majority of the independent candidates hired the services of lawyers to fill and submit the papers.

Former Nazim Attock Union Council-II Rana Shaukat Ali Khan was among the candidates who filed their nominations on Thursday for councillors municipal committee Attock. “It is going to be a very interesting contest in Attock and it also proves how important and influential the seats of member local municipal committee and union council have become,” he said.

It is being expected that a large number of nomination papers would be filed by Friday, as the political parties and independent groups were still busy in finalising the names of their aspirants on many seats.