SWABI, Oct 11: The Awami National Party (ANP) and Muslim League have tasted their worst-ever defeat at the hands of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) candidates in the district Swabi.

None of the PML (N) and PML (Q) candidates won from the two national and six provincial assembly seats of the district. This is for the first time that all the League candidates have been trounced.

However, the ANP was able to win three provincial assembly seats.

In the previous four elections, the national assembly seat had been won by the ANP in 1988, 1990 and 1997. It was only in 1993 that the JUI (F) candidate Maulana Fazalullah had defeated the ANP’s Haji Rehmanullah.

After delimitation of the constituencies, Swabi got two national and six provincial assembly seats. The ANP candidates contested on all seats while both the PML (N) and PML (Q) fielded candidates for one national and three provincial assembly seats.

According to the official result, the NA-12 Swabi-I seat has been won by the MMA candidate, Mohammad Usman advocate, defeating the ANP candidate Sheharyar Khan. The former has bagged 53,263 votes while the latter 31,569 votes.

This was one of the strongest constituencies of the ANP and political pundits had predicted Sheharyar’s win but he faced an ignominious defeat.

Similarly, the MMA candidate, Maulana Khalil Ahmad, has defeated both the ANP and PML (N) candidate in NA-13 Swabi-II. Khalil has got 48,136 votes, Mohammad Sadiq 18,476 and Iftikhar Ahmad Khan of PML (N) secured 15,649 votes.

The PF-31 Swabi-I and PF-34 Swabi-IV both went to the ANP dissidents, Dr Mohammad Salim and Abdul Majid Khan, respectively. Both had tendered their resignations to the ANP before the 1997 elections when they developed differences with the Walibagh leaders over the award of the party tickets in the district.

Dr Salim has established his own political party, Swabi Qaumi Mahaz (SQM) while Abdul Majid Khan had later joined the JUI (F) and contested election on MMA ticket.

Dr Salim has defeated the ANP’s Aman Khan with a margin of 7597 votes. The total valid votes in PF-31 were 29,275. Abdul Majid Khan has secured 9,171 votes, followed by Sardar Ali of PPP (S) who bagged 7,043 votes.

The MMA candidate Maulana Fazal Ali has emerged victor against Sajjid Ahmad of the PML (Q). He secured 10,417 votes, with Mr Sajjad trailing behind with 6,626 votes and Fakhar Zaman with 5,263.

Out of the six provincial assembly seats, the ANP has won three seats, two of them from areas regarded as its strongholds. Aamir Rehman, the son of the former MNA Haji Rehmanullah, has turned the tables on Jehan Zeb Bahadar of the PPP (S) in PF-32, Swabi-II.

According to the unofficial result, he bagged 8,417 votes while the latter 4,183 votes. The PF-33 Swabi-III was won by the ANP’s Mukhtiar Ali, who garnered 8,681 votes while Maulana Mohammad of the MMA collected 7,092.

No official result had been declared of seats from this district till late on the night between the election day and the day after.

A great setback happened in PF-36 Swabi-IV when the ANP candidate Sarfaraz Khan defeated the PML (N)’s Aamir Saeed who was considered a strong candidate.

Since the 1985 party-less elections, none of the ANP candidates had won from this constituency. In the previous four elections, the former provincial food minister Ghafoor Khan Jadoon had been elected thrice while the late Inyatullah, who also served as forest minister, had been elected once from here. This time, the nephew of Ghafoor Khan Jadoon was contesting election from this constituency.