Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) is likely to retain the lone National Assembly constituency NA-32 district Chitral after a long period of 22 years, but before going to general elections 2013, it will be required to re-conciliate among different groups of the party at district level.
Though PPP is still a popular political party of district Chitral, but since the general elections of 1988 followed by bye-poll, the PPP had never succeeded in retaining it. In 1988, Begum Nusrat Bhutto, widow of the founding chairman PPP and late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto clinched the seat defeating Shehzada Mohiyuddin, the candidate of then Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI). However, she retained NA seat from Larkana and in bye-polls, Ghafoor Shah was elected on PPP ticket.
In the controversial elections of 1990, PPP fielded Piyar Ali Allana, a Karachite millionaire, but failed to attract the PPP workers on the ground of non-local and faced a crushing defeat at the hands of IJI candidate Shehzada Mohiyuddin, while in 1993 Maulana Abdul Rahim Chitrali of Pakistan Islamic Front (PIF) defeated Begum Shehzadi Suleman with a narrow margin. In 1997 Shehzada Mohiyuddin of PML-N won the seat, similarly, in 2002, Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali and in last general elections of 2008 Shehzada Mohiyuddin once again retained the seat on the ticket of PML-Q.
In all previous elections, PPP had remained runner-up with clinching the second highest number of votes in the constituency. In the elections of 2008, though PPP was enjoying the support of the majority of electorates in the constituency, but due to failure in fielding consensus candidates resulted in the defeat of the party candidate.
In that polls the PPP repeated its past mistake and instead of awarding ticket to a common worker it preferred a scion of the influential formal royal family and fielded Shehzada Ghulam Mohiyuddin. Enraged by the party decision, the PPP workers fielded Sardar Mohammad as their candidate who stood second and last with a very narrow margin, while the PPP ticket-holder stood third in the race.
In last general elections the ticket holder of PPP obtained over 18,000 votes, while the independent candidate backed by the party backed union council Nazims clinched over 32,000 votes paving way for the PML-Q candidate to win the seat with a narrow margin of only 500 votes. The results proved that lack of consensus deprived the party of NA seat despite have a huge number of voters. On the two provincial assembly constituencies, one seat was clinched by PPP and the second by PML-Q.
For the upcoming general elections, the party is once again facing internal rifts in its district level ranks and in case of the failure in making rapprochement between the district president and powerful group of former nazims. The group of PPP backed former Nazims is led by former Tehsil Nazim, Chitral Sartaj Ahmad Khan and Ameenullah. The group of former elected local bodies' representatives is also enjoying the support of former Councillors Association, Union Council Nazims, Peoples' Students Federation (PSF), Peoples' Doctors' Forum (PDF) and Peoples' Amn Committee.
Furthermore, 50 percent office-bearers of the district chapter organisation are standing by the group. While the group headed by district president Saleem Khan, who is also provincial minister, had further divided into three or four groups and during the last six months not a single formal meeting of the district cabinet had held so far.
The announcement of the contesting of NA election by former military dictator Pervez Musharraf from Chitral has created a new situation in the district as the sitting PML-Q MNA had joined his All Pakistan Muslim League (APML), while JUI-F and Jamaat-e-Islam (JI) are likely to revive MMA only at district Chitral level to field joint candidate.
Like other parts of the country, former cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan-led PTI is also getting roots in Chitral. Imran Khan has staged not only impressive, rather biggest rally in the history of the district. However, PTI is lacking potential candidate to encash the popularity of its leader in the district. Furthermore, ANP has also started strengthening its position, but like PML-N it is not in better position to make upset in the political chess board of the district.
According to different political and independent sources, PPP is still enjoying edge over its opponents, but is only required unity in its ranks and fielding of consensus candidates. The rival group of the district president said that taking them into confidence by the leadership will enable PPP to sweep polls in the district.
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