Electoral aftermath: Kasi relinquishes top ANP post

Says senior leaders misled the party, should have disassociated itself from the war on terror.

ISLAMABAD:

Aurangzeb Kasi, the head of the Awami National Party’s Balochistan chapter, announced on Tuesday his resignation from the party in protest against policies that led to the defeat of almost all party candidates.

“I have resigned from the provincial president-ship of the Awami National Party (ANP), and given up the basic membership,” Kasi told The Express Tribune.

Kasi blamed the party’s election failure in in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Fata, Sindh and Balochistan on its “incorrect approach” towards the “so-called”  war on terror.



“After ANP’s humiliating defeat, I am left with no option but to resign,” Kasi remarked.  “I [had] been asking the party’s leadership to disassociate itself from the war as innocent Pakhtun were being killed for the cause of others,” he explained. “Yet, the party leaders failed to understand that it is a war between the US and its old allies [Taliban and Mujahideen]. It is not our war at all.”

On Monday, Kasi attended an emergency meeting called at the party’s think tank in Islamabad by ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan to look into the cause of the political setbacks suffered by the party.

All central party leaders and the presidents of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh chapters, Senator Afrasiyab Khattak and Shahi Syed, attended the meeting.



According to one of his close political aides, Kasi is now planning to join Begum Nasim Wali Khan, wife of Khan Abdul Wali Khan and stepmother of Asfandyar Wali, to form a new group within the ANP. Kasi has already endorsed Begum Wali’s views against Asfandyar, Khattak and other leaders, expressed during the press conference on Monday.

Begum Wali, and a few of her close confidantes, including Fareed Toofan, was removed from the party a few years ago, allegedly because of Asfandyar and Afrasiyab’s dictatorial attitude.

“Begum Nasim bitterly criticised [the party’s] top leaders for the party’s defeat. She particularly targeted Afrasiyab Khattak and announced plans to reorganise the old stalwarts of the ANP for the cause of Pakhtuns,” said Kasi. “Many participants at the think tank meeting, particularly Azam Hoti, who is Begum Nasim’s brother, also thought that Afrasiyab misled the party on major national issues, and demanded his resignation.”

Some leaders at the meeting alleged that it was the huge financial corruption on part ofANP’s federal and provincial ministers that was the actual cause of defeat.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2013.