NA-4 constituency: JI asks PTI to withdraw candidate from by-election

Parties with more or less similar vote bank seek to form alliances

PESHAWAR: Political parties have started making efforts to form alliances in order to contest in the by-election of NA-4 constituency.

In these efforts, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) has demanded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to withdraw its candidate in their support.



The constituency has witnessed variations in the party’s positions. In 2013 general elections, PTI’s Gulzar Khan emerged as the new entry into the constituency politics who won the elections by gaining more than 55,000 votes followed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's (PML-N) Nasir Khan Musazai, who secured more than 20,000 votes.

Musazai has been nominated by PML-N again to contest the elections while PTI’s Arbab Amir, ANP’s Khushdil Khan, who remained speaker of the K-P Assembly, JUI-F’s Waqar Khan Chamkani and JI’s Wasil Farooq have been nominated.

“Our stance is that PTI should withdraw its candidate in support of JI,” the party’s provincial chief Mushtaq Ahmad Khan said.



PTI should withdraw its candidate because JI had supported PTI in the by-election of NA-1 constituency and PK-8.

JI supported PTI in PK-8 by-poll in Peshawar after the seat fell vacant due the death of PML-N’s Arbab Akbar Hayat. The elections were won by PML-N’s Arbab Muhammad Waseem again while PTI stood third in the race. “We have conveyed our message to PTI’s leadership to withdraw its candidate but the final decision has not yet been taken,” JI provincial chief said.

“NA-4 is the most important constituency in the current political scenario. Every party will focus on the by-poll and ANP is hopeful to win the elections. There is no option to withdraw the candidate,”  ANP central leader Mian Iftikhar Hussain said.



In the rest of elections, the constituency has been won by Pakistan Peoples Party’s  Nasirullah Khan Babar in 1993, Mian Muzaffar Shah of the same party in 1988, Sabir Hussain Awan of Muttahida Majlis Amal in 2002 and PTI’s Gulzar Khan in 2013.

ANP withdrew its candidate in favour of PML-N in the recently held NA-120 by-poll in Lahore. However, the track record of the vote bank of ANP in the constituency portrays that ANP would not withdraw the candidate.

Political analysts consider alliance would be preferred by the parties including PTI and PML-N to win the constituency since all major political parties have almost the same vote bank.