Leading ladies: The experienced debutante

Dr Yasmin Raashid relishes prospect of defeating Nawaz Sharif at NA-120.

LAHORE:

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf candidate for NA-120 Dr Yasmin Raashid exudes fearlessness, confidence and energy. She sits at her Sanda Road office every day, meeting anyone who visits. She even answers the phone herself. “I never leave for colleagues or workers what I can do myself,” she tells The Express Tribune.

During a visit to her office by this correspondent, she excuses herself for a while to visit the DCO’s office to register a complaint against a Parks and Horticulture employee who, she says, has been caught for the third time taking down her banners and posters.

The PML-N, she claims, has been “paying PHA staff to remove PTI banners from the constituency”, where Dr Raashid is devoting her considerable energy to the campaign to defeat twice prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

It is a challenge she takes on without fear. She filed her papers for both NA-119 and NA-120, but withdrew from the former seat when it emerged that Sharif would be running for the latter seat.

“What joy it would be for me and the party to see him lose to a woman. Their vanity and rigidity needs to be shattered and I pray Allah for that day to come,” she says.

Though campaigning for the first time, Dr Raashid is not new to politics or to the constituency. Her father-in-law and brothers-in-law were part of the PPP governments under Benazir Bhutto.

NA-120 is the second largest constituency in Lahore with 288,000 registered voters. It covers major Old City areas including Gowalmandi, Rang Mahal and parts of The Mall. It is home to several major universities and hospitals and cottage industries.

A prominent gynaecologist for 25 years, Dr Raashid has been campaigning mostly on health and education issues. She retired in 2010 as head of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department at King Edward Medical University. She has worked extensively for mother and child’s health, thalassaemia and Alzheimer’s. She was also active in providing relief to the victims of the 2005 earthquake and 2010 floods.

She identifies lack of clean water, poor sanitation and out-of-school children as the major problems in the constituency. “We need to make sure that our people are healthy. A healthy man can make a place for himself,” she says.

While the Metro Bus Service is a useful project, she says, the money could have been better spent on other projects, such as providing clean water and building schools.

“Let me show you around the constituency. You will see hundreds of children on the streets at any given time. They are out there when they should be at school,” she says. There are at least 5,000 children of schoolgoing age in NA-120 who are not enrolled, she adds. Previous governments ignored education, she says.

“I come from a small village, where my childhood friends still live the same lives. What makes me stand out among them and be where I am is my education,” she adds.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2013.