PESHAWAR: When the Awami National Party (ANP) head Asfandyar Wali Khan recently visited Swat after 10 years, one wondered whether a politician with limited appeal countrywide could afford to stay away from a place that is part of his party’s stronghold for so long.
Asfandyar Wali, the political heir of late Khan Abdul Wali Khan, had last visited Swat in 2006. He returned to Swat after 10 long years to address a public meeting. The media reports that he was warmly received by his party workers shouldn’t be surprising because they must have missed him all these years and listened to criticism from their political rivals as to why Asfandyar Wali cannot come to Swat when all other heads of political parties were paying regular visits to the valley.
It is true that the situation started deteriorating in Swat after 2006 when Asfandyar Wali last visited it, but some leading politicians continued to visit Swat and rest of Malakand division even post-2006.
Later, a military operation was undertaken and his ANP and its coalition partner, PPP, held direct peace talks with Swat Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah’s representatives and signed an agreement. Subsequently, the ANP-PPP government in the province held peace talks with Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the leader of the Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM) after releasing him from jail. The peace agreements collapsed and in early 2009 a massive military action was launched against the Swat Taliban after all the population of Swat, Buner, Shangla, and Dir districts was directed by the government to leave their houses and towns and shift to the Peshawar valley.
According to media reports, Asfandyar Wali told his party workers that he will in future try to come to Swat more often and not after such long gaps. He also remarked that the ANP would now be embarking on its victory march by avenging its defeat in the May 2013 general election. Achieving this goal will be challenging and will require greater commitment and field visits by Asfandyar Wali.
The ANP had done very well in Swat in the 2008 general election and won almost all the provincial assembly seats. Like in other districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The party was knocked out in Swat when it retained only one provincial assembly seat due to Syed Jaffar Shah’s victory and lost every other seat. Regaining those seats won’t be easy in the next polls.
The people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa generally like brave leaders who stand by them and share their sorrows and joys. Asfandyar Wali failed to meet this standard in his native Charsadda, Swat and other parts of the province as he abandoned it after surviving a suicide bombing at his hujra on the occasion of Eid and shifted to Islamabad. It is true he was a prime target of the militants, but Asfandyar’s absence was felt. It damaged his image and also harmed ANP’s chances of victory in the elections.
