Shahi Syed likely to contest NA-241 election

While the Awami National Party’s Sindh chapter has formed a five-member parliamentary board to invite people aspiring to get the party’s ticket to contest the next general election, its provincial chief, Shahi Syed, is also likely to contest for NA-241, trying his luck for the first time in the Pashtun-populated constituency.

In a provincial working committee meeting held at the Baacha Khan Markaz in Karachi on Tuesday, several decisions were made regarding party affairs, especially the country’s general election due next year. 

A five-member parliamentary board has been formed to receive applications for the national and provincial assembly seats till September 30. Syed, Younas Bunariee, Altaf Advocate, Haji Shoukat and Shahid Ali Khan are members of the board. The party has also fixed Rs50,000 for the provincial assembly ticket and Rs100,000 for the National Assembly ticket.

A three-member appellant board, comprising former labour minister Amir Nawab, Farooq Bangash and Lala Aurangzeb, was also formed to address complaints and objections to the award of tickets. Bunairee, the ANP’s provincial secretary general, said the party would field its candidates across the city. “But our main focus will be on the constituencies that are Pashtun-populated nieghbourhoods. They include PS-89, PS-93, PS-94, PS-96, PS-108, PS-114, PS-125, PS-126, PS-128, PS-129 and PS-130,” Bunairee told The News.

The News has learnt that the party’s provincial chief, Shahi Syed, has been contesting for NA-241, a National Assembly constituency comprising several areas of the SITE area and Orangi Town, and most of the nieghbourhoods are Pashtun-populated. Syed, who has been serving as a senator, will retire from the Senate in March 2018.

Although Bunariee said the board has not yet received Syed’s application for the ticket, party sources familiar with the development told The News that Syed and Nawab, who will contest from NA-241 and PS-93, had started their campaign last month, visiting the constituency to attend funerals and weddings, and meeting local influentials.

The sources also said the ANP was confident that the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party would withdraw its candidate in favour of Syed after a possible alliance ahead of the general polls.

In the past two general elections, the ANP had withdrawn almost all of its candidates in favour of the PPP and, in return, the PPP supported the ANP candidates in two provincial constituencies – PS-93 and the PS-128. Because of the alliance, the ANP’s candidates, Nawab and Amanullah Mehsud, managed to win in PS-93 and PS-128 respectively in the 2008 general polls, and later Nawab became a provincial labour minister.

However, in the 2013 general elections, the party performed badly despite an alliance with the PPP. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has won the NA-241 seat in the past two general polls. Its candidate, Syed Akhtarul Iqbal Qadri, won the seat by securing 95,584 votes, mainly by mustering support from the Mohajir-populated neighbourhoods of the constituency. 

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s candidate, Saeed Ahmed Afridi, ranked second after securing 27,827 votes, mainly from the constituency’s Pashtun localities. The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, the Jamaat-e-Islami, the ANP and the PPP bagged 11,697, 11,438, 7,190 and 3,361 votes respectively. In the 2008 general election, the MQM won the constituency, and the Jamaat-e-Islami, under the banner of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, won the constituency in the 2002 general poll.