Familiar names among 21 hopefuls for PTI tickets in capital

Three women candidates also file nomination papers for each of the three seats

ISLAMABAD: Even as the number of seats for the federal capital territory increased to three in the new delimitations, nearly two-dozen candidates from one party alone have come to the fore to vie for a place in the lower house of Parliament in the upcoming general elections.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) seems to be awash with choice with 21 candidates hoping to land a ticket for any of the three seats up for grabs in the federal capital.

Of these, the names are expected to be finalised in a meeting of PTI’s parliamentary board later this week on May 26.

According to sources, the process of submitting applications for tickets to either of NA-52, NA-53, and NA-54 has been completed. The PTI charged Rs100,000 from each applicant and hence raised a total of Rs2.2 million.

Amongst those who have filed their applications, there are three women candidates including Abida Raja, Seemi Aizdi and Fouzia Arshad. A conspicuous omission from this short list is Kanwal Shauzab, the party’s female candidate for the recent Senate elections and the only female candidate who was competing on a general seat for the upper house of Parliament.

Amongst the men, sources say Chaudhry Ilyas Meharban, Raja Khurram Nawaz and Abida Raja have submitted applications seeking a ticket to compete from NA-52.

As many as nine candidates have come forward to contest from NA-53 including the party’s frontline legal counsel Babar Awan, along with Ali Awan, Amir Kiyani, Pir Saqlain, Raja Haroon, Fouzia Arshad and Meherban.

Similarly, incumbent PTI MNA from Islamabad Asad Umar, Seemi Aizdi, Malik Kamran Gujjar, Dr Israr Shah, Saifullah Niazi and Amir Mughal have come forward to compete from NA-54.

Meherban has submitted his nomination papers for both NA-52 and NA-53. Sources say that the PTI’s central parliamentary board will convene on May 26 at party chief Imran Khan’s palatial residence of Bani Gala to take a decision on allotting tickets for the three constituencies of Islamabad. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2018.