PTI springs surprises on its prominent leaders

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) sprung surprises as it announced the names of 60 per cent of its candidates for national and provincial assembly seats, ignoring some of its diehard and prominent leaders in the process.

The party has fielded candidates against 173 out of 272 seats of National Assembly and 290 against 427 seats of the provincial assemblies with party chief Imran Khan to run for five constituencies – NA-53 Islamabad, NA-35 Bannu, NA-95 Mianwali, NA-131 Lahore and NA-243 Karachi.

There is growing resentment among the party workers and leaders who have not  been given tickets as the party opted for many new faces this time. In a bid to pacify them, the PTI chief in a video message said: “Ticket is not everything.”

He said awarding tickets was a difficult task as from more than 500 aspirant election candidates were picked.

The prominent leaders among those ignored include former provincial minister of KP Shaukat Yousafzai, former MNA Ali Muhammad Khan, Firdaus Ashiq Awan, and Sheryar Afridi.

Mr Shaukat Popalzai from Peshawar, who served as the health minister, was ignored for town Councillor Kamran Khan Bangash, who is little known in political circles.

The party has awarded tickets to 81 candidates for provincial assembly and 31 for National Assembly seats from KP. The provincial assembly candidates include more than 30 former MPAs.

Former chief minister Pervez Khattak, speaker of the outgoing provincial assembly Asad Qaiser, Shahram Khan Taraki, Ali Amin Gandapur, and Shah Farman have been allotted the national as well as provincial assembly seats.

PTI vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi will be contesting the polls from NA-156 Multan and party spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry will run for NA-67 Jhelum.

In Karachi, Arif Alvi, Ali Zaidi & Saifur Rehman will be contesting the polls from NA-247, NA-244 and NA- 242, respectively.

Asad Umar will contest the polls from NA-54 Islamabad, Aleem Khan from NA-129 Lahore and Abrarul Haq from NA-78 Narowal.

The party has fielded Dr Yasmin Rashid for NA-125 Lahore where Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of former premier, is expected to make her electoral debut.

Ghulam Mustafa Khar has been allotted ticket for NA-181, whereas Zulfikar Khosa has been awarded ticket for NA-190 Dera Ghazi Khan.