SWABI, Sept 20: Awami National Party, Swabi district, will not enter into election alliance with Pakistan People's Party or any other political party at the district level and contest coming general election on its own strength, say its leaders.

Tamraiz Khan, ANP district general secretary, told this correspondent here on Thursday that the issue of alliance had been discussed by the local ANP leaders in several meetings while working out a strategy for the election.

“The leaders like district president Haji Rehmanullah and provincial ministers from the area have made it clear that at the district level the party has a strong setup and they are not interested in election alliance with any political party,” said Mr Khan.

Answering a question, he said the allies had always deceived them and they faced difficulties in elections. “We want to avoid any such confusion in future elections,” he said.

Other ANP leaders said that dilemma of their party was that whenever they entered into an alliance with any party the voters of their allied party did not vote for ANP candidates.

They claimed that while the allied partners had been telling their workers that they were free to vote for any candidate, the ANP leaders made the workers bound to vote for the candidates of the allies.

Mr Khan claimed that he had witnessed such tactics when they were in alliance with the PML-N in past. “The League leaders had told their voters that they should vote for candidates of their choice, though at the cost of ANP candidates,” he said while quoting Mr Rehmanullah.

The ANP leaders said that based on their experience they did not expect any good from voters of other parties.

“We can win the election if we make our own election strategy; we are sure about this,” said former MPA Ameer Rehman, adding that eight of the 11 MNAs and MPAs from the district belonged to the ANP.

Sources in the party said that the award of election tickets to various candidates was currently under consideration and the district leadership would finalise names of candidates with consensus in next few weeks. They said that new leaders of the party were strongly opposed to awarding tickets to old candidates because it would harm the party in the district.

They said that if the ANP leadership failed to introduce new faces in coming election it might harm the party.