PESHAWAR/TIMERGARA: The Awami National Party will form a parliamentary and nationalist jirga to start a struggle for the rights of the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

This was announced by ANP provincial general secretary and parliamentary leader in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Sardar Hussain Babak, according to a statement issued here on Saturday.

He said the ANP would invite all parliamentary leaders as well as those out of parliament and hailing from different fields to join the jirga.

Mr Babak said though many political parties were out of parliament they had the responsibility to ensure rights of the people of the province since it was heavily affected by terrorism.

He said the jirga would focus on ensuring provincial rights on electricity, shifting of the Wapda House from Peshawar to Islamabad, timely payment of net hydel profit, construction of small dams to generate cheap electricity, provision of natural gas to the province on priority basis, construction of Chasma Right Bank Canal, Peshawar to Karachi motorway, to free people growing cash crop of tobacco from exploitation of two private companies, distribution of resources on the basis of backwardness of a province, revitalising the industry and ensuring share of the province in CPEC.

In Lower Dir, ANP central secretary information Zahid Khan on Saturday said the people of Malakand division would strongly resist imposition of taxes on them.

Talking to journalists at Chakdara, he said Malakand was a tax-free zone under a constitutional cover. He said residents of Lower and Upper Dir, Swat and other districts had been taxed in telephone and electricity bills which would not be accepted.

“We reject any kind of taxation, direct or indirect, and demand of the government to avoid imposition of taxes in Malakand,” Mr Khan said, adding the people in the past too had rejected such decisions.

He said the ANP had hosted three multiparty conferences on the issue in the past and would bring all parties again on the table if the government did not stop taxing the people of the division.

The ANP leader said the people of Malakand had given a heavy mandate to the PTI in the general elections and now it was the responsibility of the party’s lawmakers to rid them of undue taxes.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2018