Expulsion of Sitara Ayaz, Mohammad Islam

Swabi workers ask ANP leadership to reconsider decision

By Muhammad Farooq

SWABI: The workers of the Awami National Party (ANP) here on Sunday asked their provincial leadership to reconsider the decision about the termination of basic membership of Senator Sitara Ayaz and Mohammad Islam Khan, former district general secretary. A meeting of the workers demanded that the party’s provincial leadership should reconsider the decision. Otherwise, they said they would quit the party.

The party leadership has expelled the two leaders and issued show-cause notices to six others, including Gul Wali Khan, Tehsil Swabi president, Hidayat Khan, general secretary, Faisal Khan, Tehsil Topi general secretary, Pir Mohammad, Ghulam Hassan and Amjad Khan.

The party has been divided into two groups in Swabi. Some of the workers did not attend the gathering when ANP provincial head Aimal Wali Khan visited Swabi in October. The protesting leaders and workers met at the residence of Zarwali Khan and constituted a five-member committee to ask the provincial leaders to reconsider their decision about the expulsion of the Senator Sitara Ayaz and Mohammad Islam Khan or else they would also quit the party. Swabi remained a stronghold of ANP in the past and it won the 2008 general election in the district and rest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to come into power in the province. However, internal differences have weakened ANP’s position in Swabi since then as it failed to win any assembly seat in the 2018 election.