Political heavyweights vie for Rawalpindi seats

No major PPP candidate seen in the running for the district

RAWALPINDI: Heavyweights of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will be pitched against each other for the seven National Assembly seats in Rawalpindi district in the upcoming 2018 General Election on July 25.

Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi representing PML-N will face Sadaqat Ali Abbasi of PTI and PPP’s Asif Satti in the race for the ballots at Murree seat NA-57.



Former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf will represent PPP from NA-58 Gujjar Khan, Javed Ikhlas Muslim will represent PML-N and Chaudhry Azeem will represent PTI.

Former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan will contest the election from NA-59 from Chakri, Chaudhry Kamran Aslam will represent PPP and Ghulam Sarwar Khan will represent PTI and Engineer Qamarul Islam will represent PML-N.

The NA-60 Rawalpindi city will see PTI and Awami Muslim League’s candidate Shaikh Rasheed Ahmed, PML-N’s Hanif Abbasi, Barrister Danyal Chaudhry, MMA’s Raza Ahmed Shah, PPP’s Mukhtar Abbas in an electoral bout on turf which Rasheed and Abbasi claim as home ground.



Meanwhile NA-62 Rawalpindi will see Awami Muslim League’s Shaikh Rasheed and PML-N’s Malik Shakeel Awan in the run.

Furthermore, NA-63 Taxila will see PTI’s Ghulam Sarwar Khan against PML-N’s former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

Moreover, with the exception of the Gujjar Khan constituency, PPP does not have any suitable candidate for the entire Rawalpindi district for the national assembly ticket. Former city president Amir Paracha and his group have declined to take part in the elections on the national assembly ticket.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2018.