AJK electioneering ends
Hameed Shaheen
ISLAMABAD: The highly emotions-laden fissiparous month long election campaign in the Muzaffarabad
capital Assembly seat comes to a grinding halt by mid-night tonight, September 20, 2011. Polling will be held on September 22, 2011 with toughest
contest between ruling PPP-AJK and Muslim Conference’s joint candidate Sardar Usman s/o of ex-PM Sardar Attique Ahmed, and Pakistan Muslim
League/N’s nominee Barrister Iftikhar Hussain Gilani. Independent candidates are also in the run.
The election campaign that continued to
rage for full one month was studded with unusual charges and counter charges by the heads of the political parties fighting the polls. The original
victor ex-PM Raja Farooq Haider/President PML/N had vacated this seat while retaining his native one of Hattian Bala.
Win or loss of this seat
has become almost a point of political as well as personal prestige for the contesting political parties. Government ministers in their election
campaigns have been appealing their voters to switch to Sardar Usman Attique as ‘it was the question of honor for PPP and its leadership’.
A sort of xenophobic fever gripped electioneering in the entire constituency, considered of key importance being from the AJK capital area.
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