ISLAMABAD - Major political players including the ruling PPP and its coalition partner ANP as well as the main opposition party PML-N have stepped up efforts to woo the sitting MNAs from FATA to join the respective parties.
This was stated by Munir Khan Orakzai, Parliamentary Leader of FATA MNAs in the National Assembly, in an exclusive telephonic talk with TheNation from Saudi Arabia on Sunday. He is currently visiting Saudi Arabia to perform Ummra.
He said that all the major political parties were in contact with FATA MNAs to woo them to join their ranks ahead of the next general elections. However, he made it clear that such efforts were premature in the eyes of all the 12 MNAs from FATA to consider at this point of time they would make their decisions at an appropriate time.
He was hopeful that the FATA parliamentary group would take consensus decision as to which political party they should join to contest the next general elections from FATA where all the political parties have started political activities.
He dismissed the notion that this would be first party based election to be held in FATA, saying in fact this would the fourth election to be held on party basis since right of vote was granted to the people of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) by the late President Sardar Farooq Khan Leghari.
He was of the view that all the mainstream political parties in Pakistan had their offices and organisations but were not active as such, adding now some of them including the PTI of Imran Khan were actively working to cash in the situation for political mileage. He pointed out that religious parties including the JUI (F) and Jammat-e-Islami were already actively working in parts of FATA including North and South Waziristan as well as Bajaur agencies.
Meanwhile, it was learnt that PTI was actively considering to stage its maiden political rally in FATA in order to drive greater mileage, but the sources informed that ANP was also busy to preempt Imran Khan’s tsunami in FATA as part of its stonewalling measures.