HARIPUR: As the date for local body elections draws near the canvassing has gained momentum in Haripur with candidates frantically holding corner meetings and going door-to-door to win over the voters.

A total of 24 candidates, including two women, are in the field for the three tehsil chairmen slots.

Ten candidates including former woman MPA and nominee of Qaumi Watan Party, Dr Faiza Rasheed, are running for Haripur tehsil chairman’s seat. Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan and Jamaat-i-Islami have fielded their candidates for the seat, besides six independents.

However, PTI’s Akhtar Nawaz Khan, independent Samiullah Khan and PML-N’s Sardar Haroonur Rasheed are likely to make the contest more interesting.

Akhtar Nawaz, who also served as district nazim, enjoys the support of Ayub Brothers -- federal minister Omar Ayub Khan, provincial minister Arshad Ayub Khan and his brother MPA Akbar Ayub Khan.

Known as an honest politician, Mr Nawaz belongs to the Jadoon tribe and brings with him a predominantly clan-based strong vote bank.

Though PTI’s plummeting popularity graph owing to inflation could negatively impact his vote count, the traditional clan and personality-based voting pattern coupled with support of the Ayub Brothers could come in handy for him. Ayub Brothers claim to have approved uplift projects worth billions of rupees for Haripur. For reaping benefits of their services, the Ayub Brothers are eagerly pursuing their election 2023 agenda by ensuring continuity of their development projects.

Mr Nawaz has also expressed his resolve to support the development narrative of the Ayub Brothers.

Being the youngest among all the contenders, independent Samiullah Khan is an educated scion of Utmanzai tribe of Khalabat Township. He relies on the vote bank of his paternal uncle and two-time MPA Gohar Nawaz Khan, and his first cousin, former PML-N MNA Babar Nawaz Khan, as he claims the two former lawmakers had launched many development projects in Haripur during their tenures.

Babar Nawaz is also playing the PML-N’s card in support of his cousin despite the fact that his party has nominated Sardar Haroonur Rasheed, brother of former PML-N MNA Sardar Mushtaq, as party’s candidate, ignoring his (Babar Nawaz’s) request.

Sardar Haroon is also actively pursuing his affiliation with PML-N coupled with the largest Gujjar vote bank of their tribe. But analysts believe the divided house of PML-N will likely benefit the PTI candidate.

The contest for Khanpur tehsil chairman seat is also very interesting as Raja Shahab Sikandar and Raja Haroon Sikandar, the paternal grandsons of former caretaker chief minister and federal minister, late Raja Sikandar Zaman, are pitted against each other. Both are making their debut in the politics of Haripur.

Raja Shahab, a PTI nominee, is a law graduate from London and has active support of Ayub Brothers. While his first cousin, Raja Haroon, a PML-N contestant, and son of former PTI MNA Dr Raja Amir Zaman, is also an educated young man.

Raja Shahab takes credit for his personal social activities and development projects of his grandfather and the Ayub Brothers. While Raja Haroon impresses the voters with the projects of his grandfather and his father, Dr Raja Amir Zaman, and uncle Raja Faisal Zaman, also a former MPA.

Many believe the Ayub Brothers have played a good stroke by picking Raja Shahab as a future ally from the archrivals, Rajgans of Khanpur, and would make their best efforts for ensuring the success of young Shahab to firm up their grip over the vote bank of Khanpur, once the stronghold of Rajgans.

But the Rajgans have taken the election for tehsil chairmanship slot as their last chance for political survival, and have got united for the first time behind Raja Haroon.

Though there are 10 candidates vying for Ghazi tehsil seat, PML-N’s Syed Qassim Shah, nephew of party Senator Pir Sabir Shah, PTI’s Naveed Iqbal and independent Khayam Islam, a nominee of Jehazan Wala group of philanthropists, are in close contest.

Mr Islam is a cousin of independent MPA Faisal Zaman, who is behind bars in the murder case of PTI leader Malik Tahir Iqbal and his friend.

Naveed Iqbal is younger brother of slain leader Malik Tahir Iqbal.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2021