Internal rifts: PPP district leadership opposes Kundi’s nomination

Threaten to support opposing candidate or boycott elections if ticket allotted to former NA speaker.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: The Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) district leadership has strongly opposed the decision of giving the NA-24 ticket to former speaker of the National Assembly, Faisal Karim Kundi, and threatened to support the candidate standing against him.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senior District President Zafaran Shah alleged Kundi has been involved in money laundering and corruption, claiming that he has not initiated a single development project in the region during his five years in government.



“We elected him in 2008 but after that he forgot the people. He misused his authority to help relatives and friends,” Shah said, appealing to the provincial president to not reconsider him for the polls. They warned to make their own alliance and either support the candidate standing against him or boycott the elections altogether.

Even those that Kundi had appointed at high posts have left him and joined the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Shah said, adding the PPP will lose the seat if Kundi contests.



Shah also took his time criticising ex-MPA Samiullah Alizai for leaving the party and joining the JUI-F. “He has violated the rules of the party and we will campaign against him.”

The former MPA for PPP had agreed on seat-adjustment for PK-65. Alizai was Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s  minister of industries.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2013.