PESHAWAR: The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Awami National Party (ANP) emerged as the biggest beneficiaries of differences within the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and fielding poor candidates for city and tehsil councils as well as village and neighbourhood councils in Peshawar and the rest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
In some areas, PTI lawmakers openly fielded their candidates, attended their rallies and opposed the contenders, who were allotted party tickets.
Some of them were of the opinion that the blue-eyed people were allotted tickets and the real workers were ignored and this was why they had no option but to oppose the party contenders. They even asked for action against those who were weakening the party with their poor decisions on key issues.
This situation as well as inflation and many other policies of the government helped the JUI-F and ANP win a majority of seats in Peshawar and other districts, where the first phase of the local government election was held.
The poor choice of candidates was admitted even by Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is PTI’s chairman.
“PTI made mistakes in the 1st phase of KP LG elections & paid the price. Wrong candidate selection was a major cause. From now on I will personally be overseeing PTI’s LG election strategy in the 2nd phase of KP LG elections & LG elections across Pak. InshaAllah PTI will come out stronger,” Imran tweeted on Tuesday.
Many of the PTI lawmakers openly opposed the party candidates for tehsil, city councils as well village and neighbourhood councils.
This was why PTI managed to win only a single seat of chairman tehsil council, that too in the smallest and remotest Hassankhel. This was the performance of the party in a city where all five MNAs and 11 out of 14 MPAs belong to the PTI.
The candidate of ruling PTI got fifth position in Badaber, the native town of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Shah Farman.
The party candidate could not win the neighbourhood/village council of former district nazim Asim Khan where ANP candidate was elected chairman.
Some of the PTI lawmakers were supporting an independent candidate In Tehsil Badaber who got the third highest number of votes.
A JUIF candidate Tila Mohammad was elected chairman from the tehsil Badaber with 13,454 votes followed by Ghazanfar Ali of ANP who bagged 12,562 votes.
Independent candidate Niaz Mohammad got the third highest number of votes followed by Jamaat-e-Islami and PTI.
The constituency has a total of 18,6737 registered voters. The PTI candidate could only poll 7,205 votes.
This is the same southern part of Peshawar, where the PTI lost two KP Assembly seats to ANP in 2018.
One of these ANP MPAs, Salahuddin, was once a staunch PTI supporter who was not considered in allotment of tickets. He quit the party and defeated the PTI candidate in bye-polls.
PTI remained at third position in the adjacent Pishtakhara tehsil. Mohammad Haroon of JUIF won the top slot with 11,295 votes while Zahir Khan of PMLN received 10,158 votes.
The candidate of the ruling party was fourth in Mathra Tehsil and runner-up in Chamkani tehsil of Peshawar.
Four main political parties had a tough clash for the top slot of the mayor of the metropolitan city.
The city council has 879,003 registered voters and is spread over the main urban and suburban Peshawar including inner city, Saddar, University Road and areas on GT Road, Kohat Road, Warsak Road, Dilazak Road, Ring Road and Bara Road.
Zubair Ali of JUIF got 62,388 votes in the Peshawar city council followed by 50,659 votes by Rizwan Bangash of PTI.
Sher Rehman of ANP got 49,596, Arbab Zarak Khan of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) received 45,958 and Behrullah of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) bagged 18,367 votes in the contest for the Peshawar’s mayor slot.
The PTI made the same mistakes in the 2018 general election when majority of the tickets in Peshawar and other districts were allotted to those coming from other parties just a few months ahead of the polls, ignoring the loyal and competent party workers.
Three of the five sitting MNAs of PTI from Peshawar had joined the party a few months before the elections. All of them were preferred over educated, competent and loyal workers who had been supporting the party for years.
They won the polls but some of them were critical of the party policies since the formation of the government.
The same mistakes were made in other districts while allotting tickets for National Assembly and KP Assembly in 2018.
A number of PTI ministers and other leaders admitted some of their MNAs, MPAs and other stalwarts were openly supporting rival candidates against the party contenders in the LG polls in Peshawar and other districts.
They also admitted that inflation as well as poor choices in allotment of tickets led to the defeat of the PTI.