MANSEHRA: After the denial of election tickets by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, two leaders of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s party have announced they will contest the Feb 8 polls as independents.

They include former MPA and former aide to the chief minister Zafar Mehmood and former MPA Mian Ziaur Rehman.

Mr Mehmood told reporters that he applied for the PML-N’s nomination for the PK-38 constituency but his application was rejected by the party’s parliamentary board.

“I deserve an election ticket due to the huge sacrifices I have rendered for the party and its leadership as the district president in the last so many years but the board ignored me and nominated former MPA Naeem Sakhi, who practically doesn’t exist in the constituency,” he said.

Party denies them election tickets for Mansehra

Differences emerged in the party after its parliamentary board headed by its supremo, Nawaz Sharif, finalised election candidates for Mansehra district’s two national and five provincial assembly constituencies earlier this week.

Mr Mehmood said it was do or die for him, so he would contest election in PK-38 Mansehra-III at all costs.

The PML-N’s parliamentary board also declined election ticket to former MPA Mian Ziaur Rehman for PK-36 Mansehra-I constituency and nominated former Balakot tehsil nazim Junaid Ali Qasim as its candidate.

Mr Rehman, along with a group of his angry supporters, went to the house of the party’s vice-president and former federal minister, Sardar Mohammad Yusuf, here and warned he would contest the coming polls as an independent candidate in case of ticket denial by the party.

“Neither I nor workers will accept Qasim as the PML-N’s election nominee,” he said.

Mr Yusuf, who got the party’s ticket for NA-14 Mansehra-I, tried to calm protesters down, but to no avail.

The PML-N’s parliamentary board has fielded Nawaz Sharif in NA-15 Mansehra-II, Sardar Zahoor in PK-37 Mansehra- II, Mohammad Arif advocate in PK-39 Mansehra-IV and Sardar Shahjehan Yusuf in PK-40 Mansehra –V.

KILLED: Two people, including a councillor in Ghanool area, were killed and two suffered critical injuries when a jeep they travelled in fell into a ravine in Balakot tehsil here on Tuesday.

The accident occurred as the driver lost control of the jeep while negotiating a sharp turn on the way from Ghanool to Balakot.

Locals shifted the injured to the civil hospital, whose doctors declared driver Mohammad Sajjad and village councillor Ali Zaman dead and referred the injured, including Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Shafiq, to the King Abdullah Teaching Hospital due to critical condition.

Meanwhile, a cattle pen was gutted in Pulrah area here on Tuesday killing three bulls, two buffaloes and a cow.

Mohammad Amjad told reporters that the pen was set on fire by unidentified people, who fled afterwards.

The police registered an FIR and began an investigation to trace those involved in the incident.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2023