PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party on Tuesday invited applications for its tickets to contest the next general elections.

ANP provincial president Ameer Haider Khan Hoti told a news conference here that the people aspiring to get his party`s tickets to contest the next general elections could submit applications to the parliamentary board from Aug 1 to Aug 30.

He said the board would receive applications for the national and provincial assembly seats, both general and reserved.

Mr Hoti said the party had fixed Rs100,000 for the provincial assembly ticket and Rs200,000 for the National Assembly ticket, while fee for the ticket on seats reserved for both women and minorities would be announced later.

He said names of the ticketholders would be finalised by the end of Dec but if elections were held before schedule, then the board would name candidates early.

The general elections are due to be held after May 2018.

The ANP leader said the name of the selected would be announced in three phases and names of the key candidates would be included in first category.

He said the party had decided to give sufficient time to its candidates to carry out campaign for elections in their respective constituencies.

Mr Hoti, a former chief minister, said he would give applications for both provincial and national assembly seats and that after elections were held, the party would decide about the candidate for the chief minister`s office.

He said the party would not issue tickets to the corrupt people.

The ANP leader said homework for mobilising worl(ers for the next election had been completed.

He said the party`s central and provincial leaders would travel across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata for mobilising workers and that three committees had been constituted for the purpose.

Mr Hoti said ANP president Asfandyar Wali Khan, central general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain and he would lead the committees and that the leaders would also visit Fata and its attached Frontier Regions to mobilise workers for elections.

He said the party might not be able to conduct election campaign across Fata due to prevailing security situation and would hold rallies in selected areas.

The ANP leader said the party would focus on women during its mobilisation campaign and had formed a special committee for the purpose.

He urged all stakeholders, including PML-N and PTI, to show maturity and sagacity until the Supreme Court gave final verdict in the Panama Leaks case.

Mr Hoti said the JIT had produced its report on the Supreme Court`s directives and that the relevant parties could give their opinion on it.

`The stakeholders will have to wait for the Supreme Court`s verdict on Panama Leaks,` he said, adding that the apex court might refer the case to another forum for decision.

The ANP leader said the prime minister should resign if the court declared him guilty of any wrongdoing.

He said political parties seemed to have ignored important issues like Fata-KP merger, National Finance Commission award, population census report, electoral reforms and regional situation, especially Pakistan`s relations with its neighbours, and focused their attention on the Panama Leaks case.

`The Panama Leaks case is important but other national issues also need attention,` he said.