RAWALPINDI: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will take part in the cantonment elections under the banners of ‘Naya Pakistan’ and ‘Awam Dost’ groups.

The PTI has formed a 16-member committee to select the candidates. However, the PPP will announce its committee, to be headed by City president Amir Fida Paracha, on Monday. The committee will start selecting the candidates from Tuesday. More than 50 aspirants have applied for the Awam Dost Group tickets.

The PTI committee will be headed by its senior vice-president Amir Kiyyani. The members of the committee are: Zahid Kazmi, MPAs Arif Abbasi and Asif Mehmood, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, MPA Ijaz Khan Jazi, Chaudhry Mohammad Asghar, Chaudhry Muqarab, Yasmeen Farooqi, Shabana Fayyaz, Chaudhry Adnan and retired Brigadier Simon Sharaf. The committee will announce the list of candidates within three days.

Meanwhile, Imran Khan has asked Amir Kiyyani and Naeemul Haq to resolve differences between the groups of MPAs Arif Abbasi and Asif Mehmood - known as Sadaqat Abbasi and Ghulam Sarwar groups.

“MPAs Arif Abbasi and Asif Mehmood had demanded that they would join the committee if it is led by Amir Kiyyani. The party accepted their demand after which both the MPAs participated in the first meeting of the committee on Sunday,” a senior PTI leader told Dawn.

“The division within the party will only benefit our opponents. Some local leaders have reservations on the selection of the candidates in Wah Cantonment and Taxila without consulting the leaders in the Rawalpindi district.” He said all the local leaders also wanted to accommodate their own candidates. He said Arif Abbasi and Asif Mehmood wanted to bring their close supporters to the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board and Chaklala Cantonment Board, respectively.

A senior PTI leader said the party would hold a public meeting on April 6 and Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jehangir Tareen will address the gathering. However, he said the venue was yet to be decided.

A senior PPP leader told Dawn that the party had decided to form a committee to visit the houses of workers, so that they can fully participate in the elections.

He said a number of party workers had developed differences with former federal ministers for not resolving their issues during the previous government. However, instead of joining other political parties, the workers remained silent.

He said only 45 applications had been received for the party tickets. After seeing the situation, the local leaders decided to pacify the old workers and mobilise the party in the district.

The old party workers will be invited to a gathering to be held on the death anniversary of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto at Jinnah Park on April 4, he said.

“We will participate in the cantonment board elections as the Awam Dost Group despite reservations on the non-party elections in the cantonment boards across the country,” PPP City president Amir Fida Paracha told Dawn.

He said the party had already challenged the non-party based elections in the Lahore High Court and formed the group to not let ‘seasonal’ parties to take advantage from the elections.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2015

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