Electoral alliance with PPP out of question: PTI

Regional president says will consider supporting PPP’s Shuja Salim Khan for NA-20 seat if he contests independently

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Tuesday downplayed reports about forming an electoral alliance with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in Hazara Division or elsewhere for the 2018 general elections.

Reports were doing the rounds that PTI and PPP leaders held an in-door meeting in Mansehra over forming an electoral alliance for the general elections in Hazara Division.

However, PTI’s Regional President MPA Zar Gul Khan said, “No such talks were held with the PPP delegation.”

Zar, who is also the political coordinator to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, clarified that only a meeting with PPP Hazara Division President Shuja Salim Khan was held where he did not represent PPP and discussed the possibility of contesting general elections as an independent candidate from the NA-20 constituency.



“We discussed electoral alliance for only one seat - NA 20 - and that too if Shuja Salim Khan contests the general elections in an individual capacity,” he said. “We clearly told him that PTI will ‘consider’ supporting him after consulting higher-ups.”

In return, he said, Shuja would support PTI candidate Babar Salim Khan for PK-53 (Mansehra).

“The PTI does not need to enter an alliance with anyone in the Hazara Division. We won seats from Hazara Division and the entire K-P without any kind of electoral alliance in the 2013 general elections. Allah willing, we will grab more seats in the next general elections and that too without the support of any political party. Electoral alliance with a political party like PPP is simply out of the question,” he said.

The NA-20 seat of Mansehra is one of the most important ones in the Hazara Division. It is the same constituency from where Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s heavyweight, Sardar Yosuaf, the incumbent Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, was elected in the 2013 general elections. Yousaf won the previous elections from the same seat and is still undefeated.