Switching loyalties: PML-Q losing its grip on Hazara division
Several party leaders have joined Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, while others are expected to follow.
ABBOTABAD:
As the countrywide spree of joining the former cricketer Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) continues to attract politicians, the PML-Q appears to be losing its grip in Hazara.
Several PML-Q leaders have already announced their decision to join the PTI, while several other key members are expected to join Khan within the next few weeks.
Raja Amir Zaman, a former district nazim from the PML-Q, who obtained over 97,000 votes in the 2008 election and former provincial minister Yousaf Ayub Khan have joined the PTI after quitting the PML-N.
Yousaf has been active in the cause of Hazara province. Meanwhile, it has also been learnt that former state minister Omar Ayub Khan and his father Gohar Ayub Khan, who was a former national assembly speaker of PML-N, are also in touch with Khan and are expected to join the PTI if the PML-N refuses to take them in.
Sources said certain political figures rejected by their respective parties, are also expected to choose the PTI.
According to sources, the motive behind the politicians’ departure from PML-Q is the central leadership’s weak stance on Hazara province. They were led to believe that the PML-Q had joined the coalition government to pursue the cause for a Hazara province.
However, the party has failed to fulfil its promises, which has sparked a sense of betrayal among politicians. The renaming of the North West Frontier Province was the worst blow for the PML-N in Hazara, but its popularity has remained intact nevertheless.
The PML-Q, however, which was expected to sweep the next election owing to its support for provincial status, has been discredited. Local leaders were forced to revisit their political stratagems to get to parliament in the next election to maintain their standing among constituents.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2011.
As the countrywide spree of joining the former cricketer Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) continues to attract politicians, the PML-Q appears to be losing its grip in Hazara.
Several PML-Q leaders have already announced their decision to join the PTI, while several other key members are expected to join Khan within the next few weeks.
Raja Amir Zaman, a former district nazim from the PML-Q, who obtained over 97,000 votes in the 2008 election and former provincial minister Yousaf Ayub Khan have joined the PTI after quitting the PML-N.
Yousaf has been active in the cause of Hazara province. Meanwhile, it has also been learnt that former state minister Omar Ayub Khan and his father Gohar Ayub Khan, who was a former national assembly speaker of PML-N, are also in touch with Khan and are expected to join the PTI if the PML-N refuses to take them in.
Sources said certain political figures rejected by their respective parties, are also expected to choose the PTI.
According to sources, the motive behind the politicians’ departure from PML-Q is the central leadership’s weak stance on Hazara province. They were led to believe that the PML-Q had joined the coalition government to pursue the cause for a Hazara province.
However, the party has failed to fulfil its promises, which has sparked a sense of betrayal among politicians. The renaming of the North West Frontier Province was the worst blow for the PML-N in Hazara, but its popularity has remained intact nevertheless.
The PML-Q, however, which was expected to sweep the next election owing to its support for provincial status, has been discredited. Local leaders were forced to revisit their political stratagems to get to parliament in the next election to maintain their standing among constituents.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2011.