TIMERGARA, Dec 20: Candidates contesting for NA-34 and PF-97 in the Lower Dir district have accused a caretaker provincial minister of interfering in the election process.

They claimed that he was using the government machinery to run the poll campaign for his brother in the two constituencies.

Caretaker provincial minister Bakht Baidar’s brother Mohammad Ishaq is running for the Pakistan People’s Party (Sherpao) on NA-34 and PF-97 seats.

ANP’s candidate for NA-34 Mohammad Ayub Khan told Dawn on Thursday that the interference of the caretaker provincial minister and tehsil nazim Mohammad Umar was “very visible” in PF-97, where they were allegedly running the election campaign for the PPP-S candidate.

He said that the ANP had brought the matter into the notice of the Election Commission.

Other candidates running for NA-34, Malik Azmat Khan of the PPP, Qazi Fazalullah of the JUI-F and PML-Q’s candidate contesting for the PF-94 seat, Javed Akhtar, also demanded of the authorities to take notice of the situation and stop the minister and tehsil nazim from running the campaign for the PPP-S candidate.