New radical groups fail to perform in KP

PESHAWAR: Like the old political and religious parties, some newly-emerged radical groups also participated actively in the general election, but failed to leave an impact as none of their candidates could even make a place in the contest, let alone winning any seat.

The Khadim Hussain Rizvi-led newly created Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and Pakistan Rah-e-Haq Party fielded candidates on a number of national and provincial assembly seats across the province, but they were not seen even in the real contest anywhere.

On PK-64 Nowshera, the Election Commission of Pakistan wrongly declared the TLP candidate Haider Ali Shah as winner against former chief minister Pervez Khattak.

However, the result was later corrected as Pervez Khattak had won the seat with a big margin. Pervez Khattak bagged over 38,000 ballots, while the numbers of votes secured by Haider Ali Shah were only 3,900.

Mohammad Shafeeq Ameeni, the provincial head of the TLP, contested the polls from two national and one provincial assembly seats. But he could touch the figure of 10,000 ballots in only NA 29, which he lost to PTI’s Nasir Khan Musazai, who had got nearly 50,000 votes.

Arbab Kamal of Awami National Party (ANP), Amir Muqam of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Mufti Naeem Jan of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) all got more votes that the TLP candidate.

The other two seats on which Shafiq tried his luck were NA-24 Charsadda and PK-70 Peshawar and there he secured 5,982 and 2,316 votes, respectively.

From Pakistan Rah-e-Haq Party, for er lawmaker Ibrahim Qasimi was believed to be a strong candidate. He contested election from PK-75 and lost to the PTI nominee. He could secure 6,232 votes only.

Some other TLP candidates were also fielded. They Ihsanullah on NA- 21 Mardan where he got 2,774 votes, Sanaullah in NA-26 Nowshera where he got 496 votes only and Ikramullah in NA-28 Peshawar did well by obtaining 14,296 votes. The TLP fielded Yasmeen in NA-31 Peshawar, but she received 430 votes, Mohammad Zubair in NA-17, Haripur obtained 9,627 votes, Qazi Tayyab Shahzad in NA-14 Abbottabad polled 6,290 votes, Amir Shahzad in NA-13 Abbottabad received 4,731 votes and Hafizullah in NA-38 Dera Ismail Khan got 6,122 votes.

The TLP had fielded six candidates on the provincial assembly seats in Peshawar only. But none of them was able to attract the voters’ attention. On PK-69, Naushad Khan got 3,896 votes, in PK-71, Samandar Khan secured 2,253 ballots, on PK 75, Shakeel Ali Shah got 635 votes, on PK 77, Saima Shahzad got 120 votes, and in PK-79, Hujjatullah received 3,696 votes.

From Pakistan Rah-e-Haq Party, Ayaz Khan Jadoon contested the election on two National Assembly seats – NA-15 and NA-16 - and got 2,307 and 7,896 votes, respectively. Saeedur Rahman of the party contested election on NA-1 Chitral and got 3,223 votes.