KOHAT: A rally was held in favour of independent candidate and PTI dissident from PK-82, former governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, which may change the outcome of elections on this hotly-contested seat on Wednesday (today).

However, in other constituencies of the district neck and neck contests are expected between the candidates of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal. Political pundits say that anybody could win with a little margin on the National Assembly and provincial assembly seats.

The public response was at the lowest in the start for PTI candidate in NA-32 Shehryar Afridi, and party chairman Imran Khan during his recent public meeting had to make a request to the people of Kohat to forgive his party candidate for remaining absent for five years because he had tasked him to counter PML-N MPs and attend talk shows.

However, after his whirlwind tours of the district, Mr Afridi gained sympathies of the people mostly living in vast rural areas while in central city MMA’s Gohar Saifullah Bangash is being considered as favorite.

In PK-81 and PK-82, former PTI MPs Ziaullah Bangash and Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi are struggling hard to win back the hearts of even their own party workers. They are also being neglected by their NA and PK-80 candidates, which was contributing to the chances of Iftikhar Hussain Shah and MMA’s retired Maj Shadad Khan contesting against Mr Qureshi in PK-81.

Shehryar Afridi had earlier refused the party ticket by saying to parliamentary board as head for the southern KP ticket award committee that he could not go with ‘corrupt team’ of Ziaullah and Imtiaz Shahid who had been awarded tickets despite opposition by the local party activists. The former governor, who remained head of the disciplinary committee of PTI, had also refused ticket on the same pretext.

They were on record asking Imran Khan to give tickets to some other suitable candidates. However, Mr Shehryar was summoned by Imran Khan a day ahead of the final date of submitting party tickets to the election commission to accept the ticket in the party’s interest. He went to Banigala and brought the copy of the notification and gave it to the ECP officials.

Both had openly said that there were corruption allegations against Ziaullah and Imtiaz and the people of their constituencies were not ready to vote for them again. But even in such adverse circumstances both Ziaullah and Qureshi have not lost hope and are using all energies to fight till end.

Insiders told this correspondent that local leaders were not happy over the award of tickets on the intervention of an important personality. Iftikhar Hussain and Shadad Khan have got popularity edge among the educated class in their constituencies. Amjid Afridi and MMA’s Shaukat Habib are face to face in PK-80 again. Amjid Afridi had won two stints repeatedly since 2008, while Mr Habib remained MPA earlier from ANP.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2018