K-P’s politics deprived of veteran politician Ghani Dad Khan

Former PPP, ANP leader lost his life in a car accident in Lahore.

PESHAWAR: The name of Ghani Dad Khan will forever resonate in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s politics. The veteran 70-year-old politician from Mardan lost his life in a car accident near Lahore on Wednesday.

Having jumped ship a number of times, Ghani began his political career in 1985 and contested eight times for the provincial assembly seat from his native constituency, but only managed to reach the parliament thrice.

Khan was educated in his hometown and then headed for Karachi for pursuing a law degree. After becoming a successful lawyer, he started his own practice in Karachi.

In 1983, Ghani’s elder brother won a local government election and called him back home after which Ghani himself entered politics by taking part in the non-party based general elections of 1985.

He won an MPA seat and became part of then chief minister Arbab Jahangir’s cabinet.

Afterwards, he contested twice in the 1988 and 1990 general elections as an independent candidate and lost both times. In 1993, he contested elections from the platform of the Awami National Party (ANP) and became a member of the provincial assembly and then the irrigation minister in the coalition government of ANP and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

In 1994, he jumped ship and joined the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to become a minister in the cabinet of then chief minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao.

In the 1997 elections, he fought from the PPP’s platform only to lose his seat, following which he contested the 2002 polls on PPP-Sherpao’s ticket but the result was the same.

Four years later, he returned to the ANP and became an MPA after the 2008 general elections but could not retain his seat in the 2013 elections.

Various leaders have expressed sorrow over Ghani’s demise. Former minister and ANP leader Mian Iftikhar Hussain said Ghani was an honest and well-disciplined politician and a remarkable orator. Recalling an incident, Hussain said he and Ghani were once sent by the party to counter Malik Didar Khan’s propaganda in Swat. Malik had won the election on an ANP ticket in 1993 and later left the party and started a smear campaign against it.

Hussain said when they were en route to Swat for a party gathering, they were informed the government had ordered that both of them should be stopped from reaching the gathering. He asked Ghani to give himself up and get arrested while Hussain would attempt to reach the gathering.

“I convinced him by saying that if you are arrested the media will report a former provincial minister’s arrest prior to the gathering.”

Iftikhar said they did exactly the same and when they met some days later Ghani expressed his surprise and praise as the plan had worked in their favour. Ghani was laid to rest in his native village of Garhi Ismailzai on Thursday. He is survived by a wife, two sons and a daughter.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2014.