PESHAWAR, Aug 3: Candidates backed by religious parties are manoeuvring to take advantage of a likely close contest between the Awam Dost and Watan Dost groups, backed by the People’s Party Parliamentarians and Awami National Party, respectively, in the local body elections in Peshawar district.

Counting on the break-away votes of the PPP and the ANP, Jamaat-i-Islami’s Al-Khidmat group and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl)’s Muttahida group have made seat adjustments with the two major parties and other small groups in several union councils.

The religious parties have also formed a group with the name of the Muttahida Millat-i-Amal and fielded joint candidates in union councils where they have a thin vote bank or where they are not sure of victory.

Despite the fact that Peshawar has remained a stronghold of liberal forces, PPP and the ANP leaders have acknowledged that the JUI-F and the JI have remarkably increased their vote bank in the rural areas of the district which has forced the two mainstream parties to make seat adjustment with them.

The ANP leaders blamed that the PPP had ignored their party in the polls and given preference to the religious parties. Peshawar District President of ANP Ghulam Mustafa said: “The PPP has adopted a stubborn attitude and demands a lion’s share of the seats, which is not acceptable to our party.”

The Peshawar city district has 92 union councils which have been divided into four town councils. The number of registered voters is 835,433 (492,012 men and 343,421 women). The Election Commission has declared that 141 candidates, majority of them women, have returned unopposed.

Some 4,026 candidates representing different political groups are contesting for 1,196 seats of nazim, naib nazim and councillors in the district. In the previous local government elections in Peshawar, the Awam Dost and Watan Dost groups emerged as major groups but failed to accommodate each other in power sharing.

The Al-Khidmat group took advantage of the rift and struck a deal with the Awam Dost group by giving it the office of the city district nazim. The Watan Dost group won the slots of nazims of the Town-I and Town-II whereas the nazim’s seat of Town-III went to the Awam Dost and that of Town-IV to the Al-Khidmat.

Information gathered by this correspondent from different sources revealed that this time the Awam Dost and Watan Dost were emerging as major contenders in the district whereas the Al-Khidmat group is considered third in the race. The Al-Khidmat group has fielded about 400 candidates in 85 union councils and 41 panels in the district.

The JUI-F, which had boycotted the previous local body polls, has fielded candidates under the banner of the Muttahida group. The group has made seat adjustment with all political and religious groups.

Peshawar District President PPP Israr Khan said that the Awam Dost group had fielded panels in most of the union councils of the district. The group had fielded about 1,100 candidates for the seats of councillors and nominated real party workers, he added.

The Awam Dost group has also made seat adjustment with the Watan Dost group in seven of the 92 union councils of the district.

Both Awam Dost and Watan Dost groups have made adjustment with the religious groups in the rural and semi-urban areas of the district, whereas in the urban localities, both groups have fielded their own panels.