SWABI: Awami National Party-Wali (ANP-W) and Qaumi Watan Party have been trying to woo disgruntled ANP leaders to join their parties, Dawn learnt on Wednesday.

ANP provincial leadership while acting on a probe committee report had issued show-cause notices to about 20 members, who contested local bodies’ elections without the approval of party leadership. Two of them had been expelled from the party and the membership of remaining had been suspended from one year to six months.

Among the leaders whose party membership has been suspended also include former district nazim Jehanzeb Khan and former MPA Sikandar Irfan.

Sources said though the suspended members were annoyed by the act some of them still wanted to remain in the party. The press conference which they planned to hold immediately after their suspension has been pending due to passing away of a family member of one of the key leaders.

“Our press conference is well on the schedule and we will hold it very soon,” said one of the suspended leaders, when contacted by Dawn. To exploit these differences for their own benefit, ANP-W general secretary Fareed Toofan has contacted some key leaders to join their party.

“He (Fareed Toofan) contacted me on a number of times to join the caravan of Begum Naseem Wali Khan, who has called the Swabi her second home after Charsadda,” said an ANP leader.

ANP leaders recalled that it was not the first time that Mr Toofan had made efforts to woo them into the ANP-W fold, and that he failed on every occasion.

“We think he will be frustrated once again. The ANP-W has failed to make any inroads into the ANP stronghold in Swabi,” said an ANP activist.

It has also been learnt that QWP leaders have also attempted to woo some annoyed ANP leaders to strengthen their party position in the district, especially in PK-31, Swabi-1.

Meanwhile, Sher Ali Khan, brother of expelled ANP leader Muzaffar Khan, has been elected as general secretary of Maneri Bala union council of the party. Earlier, his brother was working on this slot. When contacted, he told Dawn: “I am son of Kudai Khidmatgar, late Jafar Khan. We were born as Red-Shirt workers and will die in the same position.”

INDUSTRIAL FAIR: A two-day ‘Industrial Open House and Career Fair’ is scheduled to commence on Thursday (today) at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology.

Presiding over the event organising committee meeting on Wednesday, Prof Javed Ahmad Chattha, (Pro-Rector Academic), said the fair was one of the major events of the GIK Institute. He said the representatives of different national and multinational companies would see the final-year projects of the undergraduate students and they would also conduct their interviews.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2016