UPPER DIR: With only 25 days remaining for holding general elections, the political parties seem to be in no hurry to kick off election campaign for garnering people’s support. There is dull and unexciting environment in the district as parties failed to start campaign and decorate towns with flags, banners, hoardings etc. Previously, the parties could not launch their canvassing because of an ambiguity regarding a boycott of polls by the mainstream political parties. Also, the intention of numerous parties to begin a drive for convincing voters was marred by intra-party differences over party tickets. However, after the decision of PPPP, PML-N, ANP and other parties to take part in elections and JI, PTI and others to boycott the same, the ambiguity was removed. The issue of party tickets in almost all parties was also resolved but parties are yet to commence their campaign for elections.
With JI boycotting the elections, other parties including PPP, ANP, PML-N, PML-Q, JUI and others have not organised any gathering or launched door-to-door campaign to earn the support of voters. The candidates are also not holding corner meetings, a key activity during election campaigns. The parties have, astonishingly, failed to display banners, print posters, leaflets and install hoardings, small or big, making the political atmosphere quite dull. Unlike the past, there is no competition among the parties to win psychological war by hoisting party flags at rooftops of houses and shops, buckling badges on shirts and displaying the maximum number of banners and gigantic hoardings, picturing candidates. Although, the candidates of some parties had got some statements published in the press saying they had launched their election campaigns, but there is nothing visible.
The political environment was also turned uninspiring by the announcement of JI, one of the two popular parties here, to boycott the elections. The disappointed party candidates are not doing any political activity. Unlike previous elections, they have failed to initiate electioneering for the coming election. “We have yet not withdrawn papers,” a party candidate said. The activists of JI are not only unhappy over the proclamation of boycott but are angry with the party chief, Qazi Hussain. “We had conveyed to the party in black and white our displeasure over the boycott decision but once the party had taken the decision we will honour it as required by party discipline,” an insider said. JI had fielded a strong panel for Upper Dir except Maulana Asadullah, a nominee for NA-33.
It merits a mention here that no political alliance had emerged so far in the district, showing lack of contacts among the parties. All the parties are probably waiting for December 15, the last date for withdrawing nomination papers. However, some people are of the view that after the announcement of boycott by JI, there remains no contest, as other parties have no roots here. “After JI boycott, PPP’s Najmuddin feels no need for launching election campaign while JI candidates cannot do so due to boycott. When there is no competition, there can be no hustle and bustle,” a local journalist commented. Many attempts to contact PPP candidate for NA-33 and party’s provincial general secretary Najmuddin Khan for comments on failure to launch election campaign failed. Though the PPPP emerged the single largest party in the district after JI boycott, the PML-Q’s Sikandar Hazrat in PF-93 and Inamullah Khan of PML-N in PF-92 and even JUI’s candidates can do the upset.
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