Looking to the Upper House: Siraj bids farewell to provincial legislature

JI chief given ticket to contest Senate polls, Muhammad Ibrahim to be covering candidate.

PESHAWAR:

After serving in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq will now be heading to the Upper House.

JI on Thursday declared Siraj will be the party’s candidate for the Senate seat while JI’s provincial chief Professor Muhammad Ibrahim Khan will be Siraj’s covering candidate. A statement issued by the party’s K-P secretary general Mushtaq Ahmed Khan said the party’s parliamentary board met its chairman Liaqat Baloch at the provincial headquarters.

“A campaign committee headed by Minister for Local Government and Rural Development Inayatullah Khan will contact other parties to run their election campaign,” added the statement.

The Jamaat’s man

Siraj was elected to the K-P Assembly from PK-95, Lower Dir-II in the May 2013 elections. He defeated Awami National Party’s (ANP) Haji Hidayatullah Khan by securing over 23,000 votes. His rival, on the other hand, managed to only bag 11,000 votes. Siraj was later appointed as a senior minister and handed the finance portfolio, which he consequently relinquished after being elected as JI’s amir last year.

It was Siraj’s second stint as a lawmaker in the K-P Assembly as well as the finance minister. He was first elected in the 2002 elections from the same constituency and served as the provincial finance minister under the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal’s rule. This will be the JI chief’s first appearance in the Upper House of Parliament.

PK-95

PK-95, Lower Dir-II has always witnessed a tough contest between the ANP and JI. Siraj’s resignation from the provincial assembly following his election to the Senate is likely to trigger another high-stake battle in the constituency.

It is important for JI to retain the seat in the by-polls, but ANP is likely to put a tough fight to regain some of its lost ground.

In the past three elections since 2002, JI has won the seat twice, while ANP only managed to win it in 2008 when the JI boycotted polls.

ANP candidate Haji Hidayatullah who won the seat in 2008 was previously associated with JI but jumped ship later. Sources said JI has made overtures to Hidayatullah to woo him back to the party’s fold, offering him the seat after Siraj’s resignation. They added the JI arranged jirgas to bring Hidayatullah back and some of his family members also asked him to return to JI.

If Hidayatullah does join the JI, ANP will have to give the ticket to its former MPA Bahadur Khan. Both Khan and Hidayatullah have a history of differences with each other. If Hidayatullah decides to stay in ANP, JI is likely to award the ticket to one of the family members of its former lawmaker Sardar Alam Bacha.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2015.