Without even trying, BAP secures three seats in KP Assembly

PESHAWAR: Without even trying, Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) has secured three seats in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly following the decision of newly elected lawmakers from the merged tribal districts to join the party.

It is expected to get the fourth seat also as the party's female candidate, Baseerat Shinwari, could win one of the four seats reserved for women in the provincial assembly. Though the BAP is a Balochistan-based party and doesn't even have an organizational set up in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), it got lucky when Alhaj Shahjee Gul Afridi, a former MNA from Khyber tribal district, contacted the party head Jam Mir Kamal Khan Alyani, who is also the chief minister of Balochistan, and expressed the wish to join the BAP.

Shahjee Gul Afridi had formed a group of the freshly elected independent MPAs from the merged tribal districts in a bid to secure better terms before joining any ruling party. His son, Bilawal Afridi and nephew Shafiq Sher Afridi, both elected as independents from Khyber, and Abbas-ur-Rahman, the MPA-elect from Mohmand, were part of this group.

Some of the other independents MPAs, including Ghazi Ghazan Jamal who is the son of veteran tribal parliamentarian Dr Ghazi Gulab Jamal from Orakzai district, Mohammad Shafiq Afridi who was elected from the third seat in Khyber, and Mir Kalam Wazir who was backed by the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) in the election from North Waziristan, had also attended the group's meetings initially before going their separate ways.

Ghazi Ghazan Jamal and Mohammad Shafiq Afridi have joined the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) while Mir Kalam Wazir opted to stay independent. The ruling PTI had tried to rope in the independent MPAs. Seasoned PTI politicians such as Pervez Khattak, Jehangir Tareen and Chief Minister Mahmood Khan had also reportedly made efforts to bring the independent tribal lawmakers into the party fold. However, they could net only two independents out of six.

Election for 16 KP Assembly seats was held in the erstwhile Fata on July 20. The PTI won five seats, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) three and the Awami National Party (ANP) one seat.

Shahjee Gul Afridi, who had led the campaign for merger of Fata with KP as an MNA during the PML-N rule, claimed his group, sometimes known as Alhaj Karwan, had made gains by joining the BAP. "As the BAP and the PTI are coalition partners in the federal and Balochistan governments, our group won't face any issues and the merged tribal districts would get the benefits from the 25th Constitutional Amendment that facilitated the merger of Fata with KP. We would also seek BAP help in getting special development package for former Fata on the lines of the one given to Balochistan by the General Pervez Musharraf regime," he explained.

According to Shahjee Gul Afridi, his group couldn't join the PTI after defeating its candidates in the election. "We could not have faced the voters who voted for our candidates instead of those fielded by the PTI," he argued.

He said joining other political parties wasn't an option as all are in the opposition in KP. "This is the reason we opted for the BAP even though it has no presence in KP. However, the BAP would henceforth have a strong presence in the province and the provincial legislature," he pointed out.

He said one immediate benefit of the formation of his group and joining the BAP was the expected victory of their female candidate, Baseerat Shinwari, in the election for the reserved seats for women. "Our candidate is from Khyber district and has worked in national and international non-governmental organizations," he added.

Besides, he said the BAP with four MPAs in the KP Assembly would have a parliamentary leader and would forcefully highlight the problems and aspirations of the people of the merged tribal districts.