MANSEHRA: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl leader Mufti Kifayatullah on Saturday said that his party was in contact with other political forces to get their support for the Feb 8 election in the NA-15 constituency here, where Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supremo Nawaz Sharif is also contestant.

“It’s a misbelief that the JUI-F and PML-N are close to each other and pursue the same agenda. We [JUI-F] are a strong political power and can easily defeat Mr Sharif in NA-15,” Mr Kifayatullah told reporters outside the returning officer’s office here.

The JUI-F leader, whose election nomination papers were accepted by returning officer Hajrah Sami, said that his party had contacted others to withdraw their election nominees in his support.

He said that he had declared all sources of his income and never faced the allegation of corruption, so the returning officer didn’t take much time to clear his nomination papers.

Party candidate insists he will defeat ‘outsider’ Nawaz

Mr Kifayatullah said that the people were “mature enough” to rightly exercise their right to vote, so they wouldn’t support Mr Sharif in the election as he didn’t live here and was an “imported” candidate.

He said that his party would “thwart” any attempt to rig elections.

The JUI-F leader said that his party’s activists would monitor the entire electoral process from the start of balloting to the compilation and declaration of results in all polling stations.

He claimed that he would defeat Mr Sharif in the Feb 8 elections by a big margin.

“By and large, voters in this constituency [NA-15] earn a respectable livelihood from the farming and labour sectors. A handful of moneyedpeople live here, so I’m confident of getting their votes against one of the country’s wealthiest industrialists and an outsider Nawaz Sharif,” he said.

Mr Kifayatullah also said that the PML-N supremo could withdraw his nomination papers from NA-15.

He, however, said that Mr Sharif shouldn’t withdraw his Na-15 nomination and should face candidates like him, who were true representatives of poor people, in the upcoming general elections.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2023