Cantonment polls: Election campaigns heat up in Abbottabad, Havelian

Candidates go door-to-door to convince voters, arrange corner meetings

ABBOTABAD: With the paperwork and scrutiny process completed, candidates vying for general seats of the cantonment boards of Abbottabad and Havelian have kicked off election campaigns in their respective wards.

The candidates are visiting different localities in a bid to win the favour of individuals and social groups they believe could play a role in their success.

Late night door-to-door visits, meetings with individuals to persuade them and their family heads to cast votes in their favour, serving food and arranging hi-tea for voters at corner meetings are some of the common sights in all seven wards of the district’s two cantonment boards.

Electioneering is gaining momentum with every passing day after the announcement was made for the elections to be held on April 25 in all cantonment boards of the country.

Candidates in Abbottabad

Forty-eight candidates filed papers for the five general seats of Cantonment Board Abbottabad, but papers of two candidates were declared invalid twice by the returning officer and appellate court. Moreover, 18 have withdrawn their candidatures, leaving behind 28 in the running.

According to the final lists issued from the office of the cantonment’s chief executive officer, Malik Omar Farooq, two candidates are contesting as independents and one each on the tickets of PTI and PML-N in Ward-I; one candidate is contesting on the ticket of PTI whereas four are contesting as independents in Ward-II; one each is competing on the tickets of PML-N and PTI and one as an independent candidate in Ward-III; six are contesting as independent candidates and one each from PPP, PTI and PML-N in Ward-IV; while one candidate each is running on the tickets of PTI, PPP, PML-N and four as independents in Ward-V.

Farooq said there are 22,080 male and 18,229 female registered voters in the limits of CBA where 45 polling stations are being set up across the five wards.

Candidates in Havelian

Eight candidates are contesting for two seats from Cantonment Board Havelian and according to the Cantonment CEO Rana Khawar, one each is competing on the ticket of Hazara Qaumi Mahaz, PPP, PTI, PML-N and QWP whereas three other candidates are independents.

He said there are 5,987 male and 4,852 female registered voters in the two wards. The CBH is going to set up nine polling stations with one combined and four each for female and male voters.

Rifts and wrangling

There are allegations that elected MNAs, MPAs and the district-based leadership from the ruling PTI and PML-N are engaged in secretively convincing voters so as to help their candidates succeed.

Moreover, differences over the allotment of tickets to contenders surfaced once again in the ranks of PTI when the party’s district chapter decided to allot a ticket to a former office bearer of QWP, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Gujjar, from Ward-IV of CBA.

The party is said to have ignored the recommendation of workers who wanted his namesake, Zulfiqar Ali, who has been with the PTI for a long time, to be awarded the ticket. Likewise, the fissures are also evident in other wards.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2015.