In a shocking development, the nomination papers of Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-Mengal) chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal were rejected on Saturday.
His nomination papers were rejected by a Returning Officer in Khuzdar on the grounds that Mengal owned an offshore company.
This elicited a strong reaction from the BNP-M which said that the party would not contest elections sans its leader and that the decision would be challenged.
Akhtar Mengal had submitted his nomination papers for one National Assembly seat, NA-264, and one Balochistan Assembly seat in Khuzdar.
In addition, the nomination papers of four heavyweights of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), former federal minister and party provincial president Ali Amin Gandapur, former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser, former provincial minister Shahram Khan Tarakai, and Atif were rejected by their respective Returning Officers (ROs) in DI Khan, Swabi and Mardan districts on Saturday.
The ROs of two National and Provincial Assembly constituencies in Swabi issued their respective ‘validity of nominated candidates’ lists on Saturday and names of the PTI leaders were not included in the list. It was, however, not mentioned what the real reasons were for the exclusion of their names.
Both Qaisar and Tarakai won seats in the 2013 and 2018 general elections and were the PTI’s main candidates from Swabi district in the previous two elections.
Asad is seeking to contest the upcoming elections from the NA-19 and PK-50 Swabi-II constituencies.
The names of 30 candidates, including the Central Amir of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Maulana Fazlur Rehman, were made public by Muhammad Ali Shah, the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Relief and Human Rights), Swabi, the RO of the NA-19 and PK-50 constituencies, and Asad didn’t make the list due to unknown reasons.
Similarly, Tarakai had filed papers to contest the general elections from NA-20 in Swabi-II, PK-52 in Swabi-IV and PK-53 in Swabi-V.
Read Mengal faces charges following Quetta protest
When the RO for NA-20, Engr Syed Shah Zeb, the Swabi Additional Deputy Commissioner, Finance and Planning, and the ROs for PK-52 and PK-53 issued their final lists of nominated candidates, Tarakai’s name was missing.
When contacted, Tarakai spokesperson Ramzan Chaudhary said that Shahram Tarakai’s nomination papers had been rejected.
There was complete silence in the PTI camp here and both leaders and workers appeared shocked.
Yousafzai Ali, a former PTI district general secretary, had challenged Asad Qaisar’s nomination papers on the grounds that Qaisar had been involved in the foreign funding case which rendered him ineligible to contest the upcoming elections.
Yousaf also said Qaisar had committed a serious violation of the Constitution of Pakistan and also violated his oath as the speaker of the National Assembly.
“He does not qualify as a candidate for the National Assembly and his nomination papers should therefore be rejected,” he had said.
Similarly, Buland Iqbal, uncle of Shahram Khan Tarakai and a Pakistan Peoples Party candidate from PK-53, Swabi-V has submitted an application to the Returning Officer against the former provincial health and education minister, claiming that he had been involved in pressurizing officials and had therefore violated rules while serving as a minister during the PTI’s terms in K-P.
Meanwhile, in Mardan district, the nomination papers of eight PTI members, including two former ministers, were also rejected as the scrutiny of nomination papers continued on Saturday across the district.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 31st, 2023
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