Nasim Wali’s application for Senate ticket a test for ANP

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The aspiration of veteran politician Begum Nasim Wali Khan seeking ticket for a Senate seat will not only put to test the central Awami National Party (ANP) leadership but is also likely to dash the hopes of those lobbying for securing women’s reserved seats in the Upper House of the Parliament on the nationalist party’s tickets from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“I have never retired from politics. I am still deeply associated with my party,” Nasim Wali Khan, the widow of Khan Abdul Wali Khan, told The News while referring to reports that she had applied for the Senate seat.

She said she was constantly filling the party membership forms and has remained a regular member of the ANP even when she was not holding any office in the party since 2005. The ruling ANP, which has majority in the 124-member Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, has invited applications for the Senate election from its workers and formed a parliamentary board with Senator Afrasiab Khattak as its chairman.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly will elect 12 senators during the Senate election in March as the six-year term of 11 senators from the province is set to expire. “Ours is a democratic party and like Begum Nasim Wali Khan anyone can apply for party ticket to contest the Senate and general elections,” said an ANP leader, who requested not to be named, when contacted to comment on Begum Nasim Wali’s application for the party ticket.

He said the ANP parliamentary board would decide the final nomination of candidates, adding the board had received several applications so far. Begum Nasim Wali told The News that she would not revolt or object if the party’s parliamentary board declined her application for the Senate seat. “But I am quite sure that the party would honour me for the Senate seat keeping in mind my prolonged association and services to the nationalist party,” she said.

She hastened to add that she was physically fit to represent her party and womenfolk in the Senate. Daughter of noted Khudai Khidmatgar Amir Mohammad Khan from Mardan, she married Khan Abdul Wali Khan in 1954. She entered active politics in 1977 when her husband and other nationalist leaders were imprisoned by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto-led PPP government.

She was the first woman from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to be elected to the NA and provincial assembly in the general elections thrice. Unlike her late husband, her sons Asfandyar Wali Khan and late Sangeen Wali Khan, she never lost any election.