PTI publishes PPCs list

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Friday took lead and released lists of about 60 percent of its prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) for the National Assembly and four provincial assemblies’ constituencies, as the party Chairman Imran Khan made a tactical move to settle a simmering dispute in the federal capital over a candidature.

Instead of contesting from Rawalpindi’s NA-61, Imran will now be running for NA-53 in the federal capital, after finding it hard to pick out one name from Amir Kayani and Ilyas Meharban, for both were adamant on getting ticket from this particular constituency. This left the captain with no other option but to field himself from here.

While Ilyas Meharban has been dumped for good, Amir Kayani will be contesting now from NA-61 in place of Imran, who had initially intended to also vie for this seat again besides four other constituencies of Bannu, Mianwali, Lahore and Karachi.

The lists show that the PTI has fielded candidates against 173 out of 272 general seats of the National Assembly. Some more candidates are to be announced within two days for more constituencies. Likewise, 290 candidates of PTI for the four provincial assemblies have also been finalised for award of tickets.

Several former ministers of ex-chief minister Pervaiz Khattak’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government are now geared up to contest for representation in the National Assembly. They include Pervaiz Khattak, Shah Farman, Atif Khan and Ali Amin Gandapur.

The PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi will contest from NA-156 (Multan), Dr Yasmin Rashid from NA-125 (Lahore), Abdul Aleem Khan from NA-129 (Lahore), Shafqat Mehmood from NA-130 (Lahore), Fawad Chaudhry from NA-67 (Jhelum), Usman Dar from NA-73 (Sialkot) and Ghulam Sarwar Khan from NA-59 and NA-63 (Rawalpindi).

In all, the PTI has fielded maximum candidates against seats of the National Assembly from Punjab, indicating how focussed it is on the largest province, as maximum wins from here will help it push for power in the federal capital.

So far, 81 candidates have been finalised for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s constituencies, 21 for Sindh, 23 for Balochistan and 165 for Punjab.

In a video message, Imran said that the party had received some 4,500 applications and it was impossible to award tickets to all. Therefore, he urged that those who were left out should not get disappointed and come out along with the party for the realisation of the dream of building a new Pakistan. However, how will those, who could not get their names in these lists, react, is yet to be seen.

Several old and new aspirants have either been left out disappointed or will wait for good news in a day or two: some of them are Sheharyar Afridi, Ali Muhammad Khan, Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan and Ali Tareen, son of senior PTI leader Jahangir Tareen.

Meanwhile, the PTI central media department rushed to issue a clarification regarding award of ticket to Dr Amar Ali Hussain Khan for NA-84 (Gujranwala).

A statement said that instead of him, the ticket had been issued to Bilal Ejaz.

A party leader confirmed that Dr Amar is brother of Secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Babar Yaqoob Fateh Muhammad, who had applied but could not get ticket. However, interestingly, Dr Amar’s name is included in the lists issued to the media.

It is pertinent to note that out of 173 candidates for the National Assembly’s constituencies, 64 have been awarded to those, who are 45 years old or blow this age, while some are even over 70 years old, but some are as young as 25 years of age.