Zulfiqar Ahmad
CHITRAL, Oct 31, 2025: In a highly publicized visit to Chitral on Friday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif left his party’s local leaders feeling sidelined as he lavished attention on high-profile federal ministers and senior bureaucrats.
Opening his speech at a function held to inaugurate Daanish School, Sharif personally addressed Minister for Kashmir Affairs Amir Muqam, Information Minister Atta Tarar and the chief secretary and inspector general of police of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
However, the prime minister’s handling of Chitral’s local political leaders was far less ceremonious. They were relegated to a faceless collective of “elders of Chitral,” a vague and impersonal label that seemed to ignore their individual contributions and political influence.
Sharif’s speech, while ostensibly aimed at addressing Chitral’s needs, appeared deliberately disengaged from the district’s own political leadership. Instead, he focused his remarks on leaders far removed from Chitral’s dusty streets, underscoring the divide between local concerns and Islamabad’s priorities.
Though the prime minister did not even bother to mention the local leaders by name, he flew directly from Islamabad to Chitral to personally congratulate Fazlur Rehman Shahid, a Grade VII employee at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, on his recent wedding. This impromptu gesture of personal attention to a low-ranking staff member seemed in stark contrast to the absence of any acknowledgment of Chitral’s political figures – even those who claim to have established ties with the ruling party, especially the Sharifs of Raiwind.
In the end, Sharif’s visit to Chitral was marked by stark contrasts: while a Grade VII government employee was singled out for personal congratulations, the district’s political elite, who had once been the powerbrokers of their own land, were left with little more than a vague collective identity and a perfunctory round of applause.
Related:
If I were Iftikharuddin, if I were Ghazala Anjum, MNA, or Abdul Wali Khan Advocate, I would have left the PML-N long ago and joined PTI, the party of the people, the truly democratic party that rewards talent rather than ethnicity or loyalty to a single family. It is both shameful and infuriating that the Prime Minister cannot even bother to acknowledge a former MNA, a sitting MNA, or the party’s own district president. Such indifference is a disgrace.
PML-N is a Punjabi-centric party where anyone from Chitral has no future. If Iftikhar had joined PTI, he could have been a senator or an MNA. Ghazala could have risen to Deputy Speaker of the KP Assembly. Abdul Wali Khan Advocate could have become a provincial law minister and a key tiger of Imran Khan. Instead, they are wasted in a party that ignores talent, tramples merit, and sidelines leaders from outside Punjab.
The people of Chitral and their capable leaders deserve better than the hollow promises and neglect of PML-N. I pity those who remain trapped in a party that has no vision for them, no respect for them, and no place for their ambition. I really feel pity for Iftikhar and others as their prime minister did not even slightly bothered to address them by mentioning their names. What a pity…my sympathies are with you!!!!