LOWER DIR: Ignoring the warning of Chief Minister Mahmood Khan and other leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, the disgruntled workers of ruling party here on Sunday vowed to contest the local bodies’ polls as independent candidates.

The chief minister, at a rally held here on Friday, had warned the disgruntled activists of disciplinary action if they did not withdraw their nomination papers within a week.

The PTI disgruntled workers held a rally in Kargha village council under the banner of Maidan Qaumi Ittehad in favour of independent candidate Malik Abdullah Shah that was attended by a large number of workers.

Independent candidate for tehsil top slot Malik Abdullah Shah, PTI founder member in Maidan Advocate Mubarak Jan alias Khan Sherin, independent candidates for general councillor seats Nasir Khan, Bakht Ali, Saeed Khan and others addressing the rally.

They said that they would contest the elections as independent candidates in any case to prove that the party leaders had made a wrong decision by giving tickets to unpopular workers.

During the prime minister’s rally in Timergara, the chief minister had announced that PTI activists contesting the elections as independents would be expelled from the party.

However, the disgruntled activists including Ali Shah Mashwani from Samarbagh, Malik Inam Khan from Timergara, Syed Alam Shah from Blambat, Malik Abdullah Shah from Lal Qala and Farooq Rehman from Adenzai are in the run as independent candidates. They have formed ‘Azad youth panel’ to contest the polls.

CENTRES: Qaumi Watan Party leader Sajjad Ali and spokesman for vocational centers’ employees in Malakand Iftikhar Hussain have said that four of the women vocational centres in the division have been closed due to unknown reasons.

They demanded of chief minister to take notice of the issue and make those centres functional again.

They said that women vocational centres were established in Swat, Timergara, Upper Dir and Chitral in 2002 to train women in embroidery and sewing.

They threatened to take the jobless women along with them and stage a protest sit-in in Peshawar if the centres were not made functional and the workers were not restored.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2022