Bigwigs try their luck in Kohat division

PESHAWAR:

The four National Assembly seats in the Kohat division of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) will see several political heavyweights, including three former federal ministers, a former senator and two female candidates will try their luck in the February 8 general elections.

The areas in the NA-35, Kohat; NA-36 Hangu-Orakzai; NA-37 Kurram, and NA-38 Karak constituencies also include two tribal agencies of the former Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), which have been given the status of district after their merger with the K-P province.

Candidates from five districts included in Kohat division, including Du Zham, have contested for four seats in the National Assembly, including three former federal ministers, a former senator and a former provincial finance minister.

The candidates here belong to all the main parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam-Sami (JUI-S), Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Awami National Party (ANP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).

Other parties into the fray are the Rah-e-Haq Party (RHP), Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM). As the rest of the country, all the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidates in these constituencies are contesting as independents.

According to the list of candidates issued by the Pakistan Election Commission (ECP), the candidates for NA-35 are former federal minister of state Shehryar Afridi of the PTI, contesting as an independent; Asia Asad of the PTI-Parliamentarians; former senator Abbas Afridi of the PML-N; JUI’s Gauhar Muhammad Bangash; ANP’s Noor Aslam; TLP’s Najibullah Durrani and RHP’s Muhammad Ashfaq.

Read Three former ministers, an ex-senator and two female candidates in the fray

For NA-36, the candidates ate the JI’s Afrasiab; PML-N’s Farid Muffakir; former federal minister Ghazi Gulab (GG) Jamal as an independent; Abid Wazir of the Barabari Party Pakistan (BPP); JUI’s Ubaidullah; PPPP’s Malik Syed Noor Akbar and PTI’s Yusuf Khan as independent.

For NA-37, the contestants are MWM’s Muhammad Hussain; former federal minister Sajid Hussain Toori of the PPPP; JI’s Abdul Rasheed Khan; JUI’s Ismatullah, RHP’s Eid Nazr; PML-N’s Muhammadullah, PTI’s Muhammad Luqman as an independent and JUI-S’s Noor Alam.

Similarly, for NA-38 the full slate comprises PML-N’s Akhlaq Yunus; Hamid Khan Tofan, son of former provincial senior minister Farid Tofan on behalf of the ANP; JUI’s Shah Abdul Aziz, former Shahd Ahmad Khattak of the PTI as an independent candidate; Shafiullah of the JUI-S, JI’s Mehbood Janan; Bashir Yusuf of the Rabita-e-Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam; PPP’s Mehr Sultana Advocate and former provincial finance minister Nawabzada Mohsin Ali Khan, an independent.

In the previous elections, the NA-38 constituency was named NA 15 from where PTI founder Imran Khan lost the election in the 2002. In that elections, Shah Abdul Aziz won by securing 31,325 votes, while Masood Sharif Khattak of the PPPP was the runner-up with 17,712 votes. Here Imran had remained fourth with 9,972 votes.

In this elections, the merged tribal district of Orakzai was not given a separate National Assembly constituency. Instead, the district was combined with the Hangu district to create a single National Assembly constituency. On the other hand, Karam district has been given a constituency as NA-37.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2024.