BATKHELA: Pashto singer Sardar Yousafzai and poets Asma Ikhlas and Hazrat Khan Rahi will contest the local body elections in Malakand district.

Sardar Yousafzai filed his nomination papers as an independent candidate for the slot of Baizai tehsil chairman.

He told Dawn that after election, he would work for the provision of basic facilities of life to the people in his tehsil.

Mr Yousafzai insisted that political parties had always served own workers in Baizai and had done nothing for the common man.

He complained that the land specified for graveyards and drains had been encroached upon in the tehsil, while the land grabbers had occupied dry streams meant for drainage.

The candidate regretted that his constituency had no janazagah (funeral place), while the quality of service at educational and health institutions was deteriorating.

He said he had decided to contest local body elections as an independent candidate to address all those issues, and hoped the people would vote for him.

Poet Asma Ikhlas, who is the only woman running for the general councillor in Palai village council, told Dawn that she wanted to serve the people, especially women, of her underdeveloped and inaccessible area.

“I joined politics to resolve the women’s issues and even formed an NGO for the purpose. My election as a councillor will help me serve the poor people in a better way,” she said.

Hazrat Khan Rahi, a candidate for the general councilor’s seat in the New Batkhela Village Council on the JUI-F ticket, told Dawn that he belonged to a political family but focused his attention on his poetry.

“I will focus my attention on resolving the people’s major problems,” he said.

In the 2013 general elections, poet Rehmat Shah Sail, the recipient of a presidential award, was a candidate in Malakand district. He had bagged 8,673 votes as a ANP nominee against 51,249 secured by PTI’s Junaid Akbar.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2022