ISLAMABAD: Out of the 13 union council chairmen elected as independent candidates, 11 are from the areas falling in NA-49 which comprises mostly rural part of Islamabad except the urban UC-30.

On the other hand, 10 of the 16 seats won by the PTI were from NA-48 and six from NA-49.

Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) bagged 11 chairman seats from NA-49 and 10 from NA-48.

The NA-49 constituency comprises areas in the east from Faisal Avenue towards Murree and Kahuta.

Incidentally, a majority of the independents belonged to the PPP led by Khokhars of Shakrial and Bukharis of Malpur.

“The main achievement of our group was defeating the PTI candidate in UC-23 that houses Banigala where Imran Khan cast his vote,” said Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, the central deputy information secretary of the PPP.

The independent candidate to become chairman of UC-23 is Jameel Khokhar, a cousin of veteran political figure of the federal capital Haji Nawaz Khokhar.

The Khokhar Group also bagged seven more slots of chairman.

The winning chairmen of UC-9 Charah, Raja Zulqarnain Haider; UC-10, Kirpa, Raja Zahid; UC-11 (Mughal) Qazi Adil Aziz, UC-14 Sihala, Chaudhry M. Nadeem; UC-16 Pagh Panwal, Chaudhry M Hanif; UC-17, Koral, Raja Kaiser Javed, and UC-20 Alipur, Syed Ibrar Shah, belonged to the group.

Besides, another independent candidate, Pir Adil Gilani, won the slot of chairman of UC-2 Noorpur Shahan, consisting of Bari Imam area.

Mohammad Azhar, another independent, won the chairman slot of UC-12, Rawat.

“The basic reason for his victory was that not only he belongs to a strong family but also many old PPP vanguards supported him,” said Sibtul Hassan Bukhari, the district president of PPP.

It has been a policy of the PPP in NA-49 to file a bulk of candidates as independent contestants to manage arrangements as per the requirements of each union council.

On the other hand, the only urban seat to be grabbed by an independent candidate was UC-30. The winner, Chaudhry Naeem Gujjar, has traditionally been aligned with the PML-N.

“Naeem was able to beat the candidates belonging to the PPP, PML-N and the PTI due to the strong presence of the Gujjar biradari in G-7,” said Syed Ibrar Rizvi, a veteran worker of the PPP.

The PTI got six seats from the NA constituency - three rural and as many urban UCs.

The rural areas included UC-7 Pind Begowal, bagged by Kaiser Waqar, UC-8 Tumair, Khurram Nawaz and UC-21 Sohan Dehati, Malik Amir.

“The basic reason for this victory was the proper management made by the PTI candidates as they were able to unite all the factions of their biradari,” said a senior office-bearer of the PML-N. He said in UC-21, Mr Amir got the support of Sattis by nominating Sohail Satti as the vice-chairman.

As expected, the PTI comfortably won UC-25, F-6 (Atiq Khattak), UC 27, G-6/ 2-3-4 (Anjum Shahzad) and UC-31, G-7/1 and G-7/2.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2015