ANP announces its candidates for NA by-polls

Bilour, Aimal to contest elections from NA-31, NA-24 respectively

PESHAWAR:

Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, the Awami National Party (ANP) candidate for NA-31 Peshawar who has three by-poll wins from the same constituency under his belt, is once against coming face to face on September 25 with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan, whom he lost to in the 2013 general elections.

According to a notification issued by the ANP on Saturday, party’s Aimal Wali Khan is contesting the NA-24 Charsadda seat after his 2013 and 2018 consecutive defeats in the provincial assembly polls.

Bilhour, 83, started his political career in the 60s with the electoral campaign of Fatimah Jinnah against Field Marshal Ayub Khan and has a record of success in by-polls.

He lost to Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao in the general elections of 1988 but won the by-poll on the same seat after it was vacated by the latter. He won the NA-1 (now NA-31) seat in 1997 when polling for the seat was held in April after no election in February. Later, in the general elections of 2013, Bilour lost to Imran but won the seat in the by-poll when the PTI chief vacated it.

The ANP leader, who defeated Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Benazir Bhutto in the general elections of 1990, is now contesting his fourth by-election. This time around, he is being supported by the ruling coalition, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).

Former prime minister Imran on Friday raised the stakes of the otherwise considered dull by-elections, by deciding to contest all the nine seats that fell vacant after the National Assembly speaker had accepted the resignations of his party’s lawmakers.

The PTI chief made his decision public after the Election Commission of Pakistan announced the by-polls in the constituencies on September 25.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2022.