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.
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