PESHAWAR: Veteran politician Farid Khan Toofan has been changing political parties in his bid to win a provincial assembly seat, but even the ticket of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) couldn’t help him to win the recent election.
He narrowly lost the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly seat, PK-85 Karak, to the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) candidate Mian Nisar Gul. His defeat came at a time when the PTI ticket proved to be a magnet for voters and most party ticket-holders achieved success in the polls.
Both Farid Toofan and Mian Nisar Gul have remained provincial ministers in different stages of their career. Ironically, the latter was once the only PTI MPA from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) before drifting from one party to another. Farid Toofan too has been in and out of parties, but this time he had received the PTI ticket to contest the election.
Mian Nisar Gul polled 29,768 votes while Farid Toofan got 28,579. He had sought recount in the hope that he will overtake the winner. An independent candidate, Javed Iqbal, secured an impressive 23,026 votes and caused a surprise due to his strong performance.
ANP’s Mohammad Khursheed Khattak got 13,849 votes. PPP’s Mohammad Zaman Khattak obtained 1,059 and PkMAP’s Mehboob Jan received 49 votes only. Farid Toofan is a Pakhtun nationalist and was originally a senior leader of the ANP. He served as the party’s provincial general secretary and was a minister during the ANP rule. That was the only time he won the provincial assembly seat from Karak.
As he was close to the ANP’s provincial head Begum Nasim Wali Khan, her downfall and replacement following her stepson Asfandyar Wali Khan’s rise in party ranks also caused a decline in Farid Toofan’s fortunes. He was no longer welcome in the ANP.
When Begum Nasim Wali Khan launched her own faction of ANP named ANP-Wali, Farid Toofan joined her. They tried to trigger defections from the mainstream ANP and got hold of some old Khudai Khidmatgar movement members in a bid to gain legitimacy for their faction. However, the ANP-Wali failed to take-off. Finally, Begum Nasim Wali on the intervention of young members of the family agreed in August 2017 to merge her faction with the Asfandyar Wali-led ANP. All other members of ANP-Wali were welcomed into the ANP fold except Farid Toofan.
Farid Toofan also joined the PPP and PML-N for a while in his quest to win an assembly seat, but it appeared he was a misfit in the two parties. He made the right choice to finally join the PTI as this was perhaps the only party that could help him win the polls in the prevalent circumstances.
As luck would have it, he failed by about 1,200 votes to win the July 25 election in his native Karak. The PTI won the lone National Assembly seat from Karak by a wide margin when the young Shahid Ahmad Khattak triumphed against several powerful candidates. However, the party lost both the provincial assembly seats in the district. The other PTI candidate, Malik Qasim Khattak, the former lawmaker, lost his seat to MMA’s Malik Zafar Azam.
Though Farid Toofan lost the election, his party has won and will be forming the government both in KP and the centre. It seems Farid Toofan will stay with the PTI as the party still seems to have a bright future. Besides, he doesn’t have many choices in this late stage in his political career after remaining associated with a number of parties.
