PESHAWAR: Taj Maluk had voted for the candidates of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the May 11 general elections, but now he has changed his mind as he didn’t see any change in his hometown Nowshera from where Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had won the national and provincial assembly seats by a huge margin.
Property dealer by profession, Taj Maluk, a resident of Dheri Katikhel in Nowshera, said that he was so proud of being a voter of PTI when Chief Minister Pervez Khattak announced that corruption would be eliminated from all government departments, particularly the Revenue Department.
“I was so annoyed when an official in the local Revenue Department demanded extra money (bribe) for transferring legal documents of a piece of land we had bought in Nowshera,” he said. He said he was ready to identify the official who had taken money from him to the chief minister.
Like Taj Maluk, majority of the people in Nowshera didn’t see any change in the behaviour and malpractices of the police and revenue departments. The PTI-led coalition government had claimed it would end corrupt practices in these departments.
“If the government cannot implement its agenda in letter and spirit even in the hometown of the chief minister, then what could the people of other parts of the province expect from it,” asked Hayat Sher, who owns a small shop in the Nowshera Cantonment Bazaar.
He said the people had voted the PTI candidates to power with the hope that they would make a positive change in government institutions. “I think majority of the voters would not go to the polling booths and those who do so would not cast votes in favour of the PTI candidate in the by-polls,” he added.
Farhatullah, a resident of Nowshera Kalan, said that contrary to the tall claims of the provincial government there was no improvement in the services of the lone district hospital in Nowshera where patients were not getting free-of-cost treatment or medicines. “The people would not believe in the empty slogans of the government unless they see and feel changes in the government departments,” he added.
The PTI had won all the five provincial assembly and two National Assembly seats in Nowshera in the May 11 general elections. Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had won from both National Assembly constituency NA-5 and provincial assembly constituency PK-13.
He vacated the NA-5 and retained PK-13 to become the chief minister. He has now fielded his nephew and son-in-law Dr Imran Khattak to run for NA-5 in the by-polls to be held on August 22.
Imran Khattak will face Daud Khattak, who is the joint candidate of Awami National Party, Pakistan People’s Party and Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl. Daud Khattak was the runner-up in the general election, though he lagged far behind Pervez Khattak in the contest.
