ATTOCK-Eight candidates are in the NA-55 electoral race including former district nazim Tahir Sadiq of PTI and former federal minister for parliamentary affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmad of PML-N.
The constituency consists of tehsil Attock, Hazro and Hassanabdal where there are 571,804 registered voters. Other six candidates are Zulfiqar Hayat Khan (PPPP), Asif Iqbal of Allahu Akbar Tehreek, Taimoor Aslam of PTI, Hafiz Saeed Ahmad of MMA, Muhammad Hafeezullah Jan of Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan and Malik Mir Afzal of Pakistan Human Rights Party.
Tahir Sadiq, who has joined PTI as last year and was previously associated with PML-Q and enjoyed twice as district nazim Attock during Musharraf regime, is apparently a strong candidate. He is considered as a politician who has contacts at a grassroots level with the people having strong teams at union council level. He also claims to have done lot of development work, provided thousands of jobs to youth in education, police and other departments and is a person accessible to everyone at any time. He supports his colleagues and workers out of the way in any field.
Meanwhile, Sheikh Aftab has been in govt for the last 10 years as state and federal minister and did a lot of development work in his constituency. He claims that he provided gas facility to all the villages of tehsil Attock and Hazro, metalled roads , established Agriculture University in Attock, started master level classes in Govt Boys College while PML-N govt recruited thousand of teachers purely on merit which is a record.
Although both the leaders have lot of contributions on their credit but for the forthcoming elections both would have to work hard to bag the seat.
Malik Amin Aslam who is too close to Chairman Imran Khan , who also looked after a tsunami project in KP and Imran Khan acknowledged his services at every forum but did not award him ticket for NA-55. Imran Khan considered Tahir Sadiq stronger than him. Malik Amin Aslam who is also a former environment minister filed his nomination papers for NA-55 and forced by his supporters to contest as an independent candidate as PTI did not award him the ticket. However, he withdrew his nomination papers and sated that he would not betray his party leadership and to promote the vision of Imran Khan by not contesting elections. He also said that would not take part in the election campaign of Tahir Sadiq. He said that injustice has been done by not giving him ticket.
Sheikh Aftab who has been in power for the last 10 years has thousands of supporters and is running his election campaign with high hopes. However some of his party office-bearers at tehsil level have joined other parties or supporting other candidates which has certainly created problems for him.