May 05, 2008	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 28, 1429

TOBA TEK SINGH, May 4: The Samundri tehsil has become a tough battle field for two outsiders who will contest the by-polls on PP-59 seat.

Chaudhry Amjad Ali Warraich from Gojra will contest as an independent candidate while Qasim Zia will take the field as a PPP candidate.

The seat fell vacant after independent candidate Rana Muhammad Farooq, who had won NA-79 and PP-59 seats simultaneously by defeating candidates of PPP, PML-N and PML-Q, decided to retain the NA seat. He then joined his mother party, PPP from where he had started politics after quitting student politics.

Late PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto had refused to award a party ticket to Rana Farooq and obliged a UK-return son of a late PPP MNA Chaudhry Muhammad Khan Jat, but he was defeated with sizable margin by the former.

Rana Farooq actually belonged to Gojra and he had won the Samundri seat in 1988 as an independent candidate as well when he was not given the PPP ticket from Gojra. He had also held the Samundri tehsil nazim slot.

Mr Farooq has now offered PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari to award party ticket to Punjab former PPP president Qasim Zia (who could not win a seat in 2008 elections) or any other party leader from the PP-59 seat that he left vacant.

It is learnt that Qasim Zia is arriving in Samundri on Monday (today) to file his nomination papers.

Chaudhry Amjad Ali Warraich, who was MNA from NA-92 (Gojra) seat, had been disqualified a few days before the end of the National Assembly term when the Supreme Court had declared his graduation degree as fake.

His nomination papers for the same seat in 2008 elections were rejected again when he produced a fake BA degree of a Sindh university.

At last, he fielded his wife Farkhanda Amjad who won the NA-92 seat on a PML-Q ticket in 2008 elections. Amjad’s younger brother Chaudhry Bilal Warraich is currently an MPA from PP-84 (Gojra) seat.

The PP-59 seat is dominated by three biradaris – the Rajputs, the Gujjars and the Jats. Amjad Ali Warraich will heavily rely on the strong vote bank of his Jat biradari.