RAWALPINDI: The nomination of unknown personalities for Rawalpindi city’s two seats of National Assembly (NA) by the PPP has disturbed old party workers who have announced not to support them.

The PPP also failed to field any prominent personality to face former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan due to the absence of any suitable candidate.

For NA-60 and NA-62, the PPP has fielded Mukhtar Abbas and Sheikh Nadeem, respectively. Mr Nadeem is a trader by profession and was a member of the PML-N backed traders’ association while Mr Abbas is nephew of Majlis Wahdat Muslimeen leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas.

Disgruntled party workers say they will not support the newcomers and vote for candidates of other parties

“The PPP gave tickets to Mr Abbas and Mr Nadeem and asked them to launch their election campaigns,” the city president of the party, Babar Jadoon, told Dawn.

He admitted that both were new in politics, adding: “The PPP wanted to bring new faces as old candidates refused to face Sheikh Rashid Ahmed as they have close relations with him.”

Mr Jadoon was referring to former PPP city president Amir Fida Paracha who contested the 2008 elections but refused to take part in elections in 2013 and 2018.

He said Mr Nadeem was the president of Milad Committee of Rawalpindi which organised the 12th Rabiul Awal processions. Mr Abbas is also a known personality in the city and religious circles, he added.

A senior PPP leader told Dawn that the party’s old workers had decided not to support the candidates as the leadership did not take them into confidence before making the decision.

“Benazir Bhutto used to either personally consult party workers or through Naheed Khan and nominated the best candidates. But after her assassination, Asif Ali Zardari made wrong decisions which alienated the workers.”

He said old workers held a meeting at the house of a local leader in Dhoke Ratta on Monday and decided to support candidates of other parties.

Asif Akbar, a vice president of the PPP, said he had applied for the ticket but the party picked newcomers who had no coordination with the workers.

He said the party gave preference to the land mafia and businessmen and ignored old workers who had supported the party in difficult times. He said he was not sure if the party would get more votes compared to the 2013 elections.

In 2013, PPP candidate Chaudhry Iftikhar got 3,300 votes from NA-55 Rawalpindi city (now NA-62) while the winning candidate bagged 80,000 votes.

A senior PPP worker, Jamil Qureshi, said due to the wrong policies the party had no support in the Rawalpindi city as old workers were angry with the leadership.

“Both the candidates are new in politics. Sheikh Nadeem was in PML-N and joined the party recently. Mukhtar Abbas is also new. It will be difficult for the workers to support such candidates who do not even know the workers,” said Sheikh Ramzan, a PPP worker from Raja Bazaar.

He said the PPP supported Sheikh Rashid in the 2013 general elections but the latter worked against the party and joined hands with Imran Khan.

Altaf Butt, a party worker from Satellite Town, said old workers would not support the newcomers. “If the party brought some electables it would be acceptable for the workers as there is shortage of leaders in Rawalpindi,” he said.

He said once the stronghold of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Rawalpindi has now become a bastion of PML-N and PTI as in the 2013 elections the PPP failed to get a single seat.

He said there were two reasons: first, the PPP ignored its old workers during its five-year tenure and in return the workers refused to support it and second, the party has no leader to lead the workers in the city.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2018