Candidates supported by Saifullah Group win in Lakki LG polls

LAKKI MARWAT:

In the Lakki Marwat district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Saleem Saifullah Group has once again shown its political muscles as all the four candidates supported by the group won comfortably their tehsil chairmen seats against their PTI rivals supported by Ali Amin Gandapur faction.

Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was greatly divided in the district from the day one as the influential federal minister Ali Amin Gandapur wanted to issue party tickets to his own supporters leaving the old party workers, who were affiliated with Safiullah Group, angry as a result the PTI district general secretary Shafqatullah Khan decided to contest as independent candidate with the support of Hisham Inamullah and Saifullah Group which has a large support base in the district traditionally.

Shafqatullah Khan won the seat of city tehsil by grabbing 21,960 votes. The PTI candidate was on fourth position by securing just 9,730 votes clearly indicating the wrong choices made by Ali Amin Gandapur Group. In Sarai Norang tehsil the group supported Jamat-e-Islami (JI’s) Azizullah Khan who also won easily by securing 16,696 votes. His close rival was JUI-F’s Malik Hizbullah Khan. PTI candidate was on third position. In the third tehsil of Ghazni Khel the group supported Zeeshan Khan who clinched 30,547 votes followed by JUI-F candidate at 19,595. The PTI candidate Lala Saleem Multani got just 9,167 votes.

As per the unofficial results, in the fourth tehsil of the district, Ishfaq Khan won by securing 1,419 votes. He was also supported by the Saifullah and Hisham Inamullah Group.In tehsil Lakki Marwat, the supporters of various candidates clashed and attacked the polling station after which the polling was postponed so the voting will take place again on one polling station.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2021.