MANSEHRA: The PTI election ticket aspirants from different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have announced that they will protest nomination denial outside party chief Imran Khan’s mansion in Banigala, Islamabad.

In Mansehra, general secretary of Hazara division PTI’s women wing Ambreen Swati told reporters that she along with other aspirants had planned to stage a sit-in in Banigala against non-inclusion in priority list for seats reserved for women in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“Such people are on the priority lists for seats reserved for women in KP, who have no services for the party at all,” she claimed said.

She said the party’s women workers from across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would hold a peaceful protest outside Banigala on Tuesday.

“We know that Imran Khan has no role in the election nomination of the women, who had joined the party lately after quitting other parties,” she said.

Ms Swati said the party’s regional chiefs in the province were directly involved in such unfair nominations, which ignored loyalists.

She said the Maria Fatima and Zahida Sabeel had been contesting elections on the PTI tickets in Mansehra district though they didn’t have party affiliations for long.

In Kohat, scores of PTI workers from PK-81 constituency held a demonstration before leaving for Banigala in vehicles to demand withdrawal of election nomination of former law minister Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi.

They claimed that the party had many committed activists in the region but the election ticket had been awarded to the former minister, who despite having huge royalty fund didn’t complete a single development project in the constituency during last five years.

They asked Imran Khan to name a candidate from among dozens of honest and true PTI activists for PK-81.

In Battagram, too, aspirants announced that they would protest denial of election tickets by the PTI.

Former PTI district president Syed Amal Shah Sherazi, who led the disgruntled activists, said the party should award tickets to deserving aspirants.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2018