ABBOTTABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Pakistan Peoples Party here on Wednesday joined hands to defeat the PML-N candidate in the election for the office of vice-president of Cantonment Board, Abbottabad.

Official sources said that the PPP nominee was elected vice-president with the support of PTI members.

They said that initially three candidates were in the run for the office of VP as both PTI and PML-N had equal strength of five votes each while there were only two members from the PPP who were holding the triumph card.

The sources said that after long negotiations PTI decided to prefer the PPP over PML-N and withdrew its candidate Daniyal Khan in favour of Fawad Ali giving him free field.

The PML-N fielded Wajid Khan against the joint candidate of PTI and PPP. According to the official result, Wajid could bag only five votes while Fawad won the seat by obtaining seven votes.

Earlier, Cantonment Board president Brig Moeen Arshad administered oath to eight of the 12 nominated members of the board as four of the officialscould not turn up at the meeting due to their official engagements.

The two civil members elected on special seats of minority and peasant workers also took oath on this occasion.

The newly-elected VP Fawad Ali also took oath soon after announcement of the results. Earlier, the schedule for the election of cantonment board VP was changed twice from Jan 28 and Feb 1 as some of the nominated members were preoccupied with their official work.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2022