PESHAWAR: One of the youngest candidates in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the 30-year-old Kamran Khan Bangash of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), is challenging many senior rivals in his bid for PK-77 Peshawar XII constituency in the election.
It is an urban constituency which was known as PK-2 before the present delimitation. Those who won from here in the past included Haji Muhammad Javed, late Syed
Qamar Abbas and Syed Zahir Ali Shah of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and late Agha Syed Ali Shah.
The constituency was once considered a stronghold of the PPP. Syed Qamar Abbas, who had served as political secretary to PPP head Benazir Bhutto, emerged victorious on the seat twice and served as minister both the times.
Syed Zahir Ali Shah won the seat in two consecutive general elections. First, he won in 2002 when the six-party alliance of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) had swept the elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly NWFP) and again in 2008 and served as health minister.
Syed Zahif Ali Shah, son of late Syed Zafar Ali Shah who had won the NA-1 Peshawar seat in the 1993 elections, was again a candidate from this constituency in 2013, but lost to PTI’s Shaukat Yousafzai who secured 22,932 votes. The PTI had won 10 out of 11 provincial assembly seats from Peshawar in the 2013 polls.
This time PK-77 constituency will witness a tough contest as there are 15 candidates in the field.
Besides Kamran Bangash, the other candidates are Syed Zahir Ali Shah (PPP), Maulana Khairul Bashar (MMA), Hassan Mehmood Jan (PML-N), Muhammad Umar Khan Mohmand (ANP), Muhammad Adeel (QWP), Bilal Muhammad (Pakistan Justice and Democratic Party), Haider Zaman (Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek), Saima Shehzad (Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan), Taif Jan (Tehreek-e-Jawanan-e-Pakistan), Abid Nawaz Durrani (All Pakistan Muslim League), Gul Rehman (Pasban Pakistan), Noor Hussain (Amun Tarraqi Party), Muhammad Nawab Ali and Naseer Hussain (Independents).
Maulana Khairul Bashar is a senior religious scholar enjoying respect in the area. The ANP nominee Muhammad Umar Mohmand served as Peshawar district nazim for a short time in the past.
The PK-77 has 138,831 voters, including 78,055 male and 60,776 female. There will be 338 polling booths - 196 for men and 142 for women.
Kamran Bangash is young and educated with a passion for social service. He attended the historic Edwardes College Peshawar and graduated in Computer Sciences with distinction.
Kamran Bangash told The News he had also qualified the Tehsil Municipal Official (TMO) examination, conducted by the KP Public Service Commission.
“A total of 42,000 candidates had appeared in the exam and only 35 were declared successful. I was among the top scorers who qualified the test and the interview. But I preferred politics from the PTI platform to a grade-17 job and opted to contest for the PK-77 seat to serve the masses and play a larger role in the change promised by my leader Imran Khan,” he explained.
Kamran Bangash has been associated with PTI since 2006 and has enthusiastically worked in different capacities. He was head of the PTI Social Media in KP from 2007-10, remained a member of the PTI National Youth Council from 2011-13, information secretary for PTI Peshawar in 2009, coordinator for the Insaf Doctors Forum (2010-12) and member of the Insaf Professional Forum 2010-18.
As a youth leader he remained a key member of the Policy Formulation Group for the first-ever KP Youth Policy, organised medical and relief camps for Malakand Internally Displaced Persons in 2009, served as coordinator for Charsadda in flood relief programme of Imran Khan Foundation (Pukaar) in 2010 and worked for Kalash (Chitral) Cultural Preservation Plan as volunteer with Culture Department of the provincial government.
Kamran Bangash gained experience of grassroots politics when he was elected member of the Town-I (Peshawar City) and was among its active members.
He was among two nominees by the PTI for IRI (International Republican Institute) training in research methodologies and political surveys. He was nominated by the party for communication workshops and political working group discussions organized by the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
Asked about his prospects as he was facing rivals with strong political backgrounds, he claimed his constituency was a PTI stronghold. “The time is over for politicians who had always deceived the masses. The PTI would clean sweep the elections as it did in 2013,” he maintained.
“The last PTI government improved the health and education facilities along with several other sectors. If elected, I will utilise my energies to expand the education and health facilities in my constituency,” he promised.
He said his constituency, especially Gulbahar, needed more boys and girls colleges apart from second shifts in the existing colleges. “I will set up water filtration plants, sewerage system and parks, and launch youth empowerment and employment schemes,” he pledged.
Kamran Bangash said he would try his best to make functional the Nishtarabad Hospital to cater to the needs of people.
“I am determined to follow up on the Youth Policy, Tourism Policy and the Culture Policy evolved by the PTI government and ensure these are successfully implemented in the next term of our government,” he said.
