SWABI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf workers here on Saturday strongly reacted to award of a major chunk of election tickets to only two families of the district.

Perhaps Swabi is the only district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where no new candidate got the PTI ticket for the upcoming general election and of the six awarded tickets three went to one family, two to another andone ticket to former MPA who joined the caravan of Imran Khan. Only the ticket for PK-43, Swabi-I, has not been awarded.

About the other constituencies, the PTI workers had predicted before announcement of the tickets that three each tickets would go to Mr Qaiser and Mr Shahram family.

Asad Qaiser, Tarakai family get major chunk of tickets

It was reliably learnt on Saturday that PK-43 ticket had also been given to Mr Qaiser and now it was up to him whether he gave it to his brother former MNA Aqibullah Khan, former district president Rangaiz Khan or he might decide to contest election from this consistency himself along with two other constituencies.

NA-18, Swabi-I and PK-44, Swabi-II, tickets have been given to Mr Qaisar; PK-45, Swabi-III, to Abdul Karim, a former QWP MPA who joined PTI; PK-46, Swabi-IV, to Shahram Tarakai’s uncle Mohammad Ali Tarakai; PK-47, Swabi-V, to Shahram Tarakai; and NA-19, Swabi-II, to Usman Khan Tarakai, another uncle of Mr Shahram.

Usman Tarakai would contest election for the third time and all the remaining candidates for the second time.

“The award of tickets has made it clear that Mr Qaiser and Mr Shahram are very dominant in PTI,” said a key leader who also wanted to contest the election.

Sources said that Mr Qaiser had given the task to some leaders to convince Mr Rangaiz to remain silent and let him give the ticket to his brother. Mr Rangaiz, who was runner-up candidate in 2013 election, had threatened that if he was not awarded ticket he would contest election as an independent candidate.

Dr Mohammad Farooq, a senior leader in Chota Lahor tehsil, had announced that he would contest election from PK-45 against Mr Karim. Shah Wali, who contested 2013 election as independent candidate had declared that if Mr Qaiser’s brother got the ticket for PK-44 he would file his nomination papers once again as an independent candidate.

Talking to this correspondent, a number of local leaders criticised the award of tickets and said that the party violated the pledge of giving an opportunity to new faces and ensuring equal distribution of tickets.

Some candidates have already collected the nomination papers to contest election independently. The workers who had rendered sacrifices for the party were virtually ignored when almost six tickets were awarded to two families.

The local leaders said that it was responsibility of the old candidates to provide opportunity to the new members to contest election. There was also frustration among the youth who wanted change of the party’s contesting candidates.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2018