Three billionaires are vying for the sole National Assembly seat of Kohat (NA-14) and one of the candidates is said to have bought vehicles worth Rs50 million for running his campaign during coming general election.
The three candidates are Seth Gohar Saifullah of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F), who is a known business tycoon of Karachi; Engineer Malik Asad of PML-N, former Kohat district nazim; and Shamim Afridi, who remained a business partner of late Akbar Khan Bugti. Mr Shamim’s son Senator Abbas Afridi remained state minister for Safron, while his other son Amjid Afridi was a provincial minister in the ANP-led government.
Sources told this correspondent that Afridis had bought double cabin pickups worth Rs50 million for electioneering. They claimed that Afridis had also distributed money and laptop computers among media persons and provided Rs200,000 camera to the local information department for coverage of their election campaign. Besides, they have been spending heavily on advertisement campaign.
Mr Shamim had not applied for ticket of any party and was likely to contest election as independent candidate.
Mr Asad of PML-N is so far considered the favorite candidate for the seat because of his good track record as nazim. He had also been spending millions of rupees on his election campaigns. He was considered a winning candidate in 2008 general election, but was defeated after he refused to contest election on the PPP ticket.
The third candidate is Mr Saifullah whose father was a billionaire. He knows how to spend money, but is relying much on the votes of religious people for being candidate of the JUI-F. He also remained Kohat district nazim. — Correspondent
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