SWAT: Founding members of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in NA-2 constituency here on Friday announced that despite “unfair” election nomination by the party’s leadership in Malakand division, they would continue to stand with their leader and former prime minister, Imran Khan.

They claimed that the local leadership ignored the PTI’s “ideological workers” for election tickets and fielded those who recently joined the party.

Accompanied by several PTI workers from Madyan Valley, local PTI leader Engineer Riaz Ahmad told reporters at the Swat Press Club that he along with other founding members of the PTI applied for NA-2 ticket and decided to support each other if any of them got the ticket.

He said the local party leadership, in a hurry, committed mistakes in ticket distribution causing founding members to raise reservations about the exercise.

“We all want to tell everyone, including the forces that are subjecting the PTI to ‘injustices’ that we will continue to stand with our party and leader Imran Khan,” he said.

Mr Ahmad said as Mr Imran was in jail and the circumstances didn’t favour the PTI, the Malakand leadership didn’t follow rules for the award of election tickets.

He, however, said all PTI workers in Khwazakhela and Bahrain tehsils would support the vision of their leader Imran Khan and vote for those nominated by party leadership.

“Those at the helm even took away our party’s symbol ‘bat’ in a bid to confuse the PTI supporters during election to vote for a candidate not nominated or backed by the party, but I must say that we have developed a mechanism under which we have educated workers about the symbols of our nominees,” he said.

The PTI leader said that only Imran could steer the country out of the current political, economic and other crises.

He said that the denial of the election symbol ‘bat’ was not an issue for the PTI as people considered Imran Khan their leader and the Feb 8 elections would show it to everyone, including those opposed to him.

Mr Ahmad said that the PTI government introduced massive reforms in all sectors and institutions and strengthened the nation.

“It was the PTI [government] that gave away Rs1 million to everyone in the shape of the Sehat Sahulat Card health insurance programme,” he said.

The PTI leader said the programme provided the common man with access to quality healthcare free of charge.

He said that his party’s government had reformed the education sector and strived for alleviating poverty and providing people with the right to information.

The other PTI activists criticised PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari for “making money in the country and shifting it abroad.”

They said Swat would vote for PTI nominees on Feb 8 and that the party would again rule the country.

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2024