ANP leader opposes demand for Hazara province

MANSEHRA: The Awami National Party (ANP) and Tehreek-e-Sooba Hazara (TSH) are at odds over the change of the name of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.“We are going to call a grand jirga of as many as 15 Pakhtun tribes, which will demand that the government shorten the name of our province to just ‘Pakhtunkhwa,” Ahmad Yar Khan, the district president of ANP, told reporters on Sunday.

The TSH and ANP have ramped up efforts in the Hazara division to push the federal government to accept their respective versions of the KP province’s nomenclature.“The federal government has promised our central leadership that the name of KP will be changed to Pakhtunkhwa through a constitutional committee, which will be formed after the passage of the 26th Amendment from both the upper and lower houses of parliament,” ANP leader said.

He believed in the current situation, the creation of more federating units would cause chaos and political instability, and parties demanding more provinces were acting against the unity of this country.

The ANP leader stressed that his party was fighting for the identity of their people, just as the people of Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan.Meanwhile, the chairman of Tehreek-e-Sooba Hazara, Sardar Mohammad Yousuf, said that the people of Hazara were united in their demand for a separate province.

“The people of Hazara will never accept a change in the name of the KP province until their demand for a separate province is met,” he told reporters.Sardar Mohammad Yousuf, who served as federal minister of religious affairs and was elected as an MNA for the fourth time in the February 8 general elections on the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz ticket, said that their demand for a separate province was solely for the rights of the people.“The KP Assembly has passed resolutions in favour of the Hazara province twice, and we have now submitted the resolution to the National Assembly Secretariat as well,” he said.