THE PPP and PML-Q are in the process of adding two and two together. In the case of the by-election in PP-220 in Sahiwal, the ‘five’ answer has eluded the partners and the pair of twos has yielded a rather ominous zero.

The question is, do the allegations of poll rigging sound any more convincing when the PPP and the Q-League are making these allegations together? The answer seems to be in the negative as we see Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi finding solace and refuge in bigger issues of Punjab and Pakistan instead of getting bogged down in the small matter of a by-election.

It was technically Chaudhry Sahib’s candidate who lost the election last week. There were some rather mild protests post-vote in which the Punjab administration was accused of abusing the government’s infrastructure to influence the poll in a huge way. Some of these allegations may have been true, says a journalist based in Sahiwal. Yet, the result was not all that unexpected.

Two men, both sporting the Khagga surname, have been using the constituency to make their customary trips to the Punjab Assembly by turns. One of them, Pir Ahmed Shah Khagga, is no more and in the local understanding it was only logical that the one remaining contestant won.

Khizr Khagga, the winning PML-N candidate in the by-election, is the son of Walayat Shah Khagga. In 1988, Walayat Khagga won the contest here as a PPP nominee. He lost to arch rival Pir Ahmed Shah Khagga in 1990 of the Muslim League (Nawaz group), before regaining the seat in 1993, again on a PPP ticket.

The pattern continued when Ahmed Shah Khagga won the constituency in 1997 as a PML-N man. The PPP’s Walayat Khagga lost in a poll that reduced the PPP to a tiny minority in the Punjab Assembly as well as in the National Assembly.

In 2002, Walayat Khagga wrested ‘his’ seat back from Ahmed Khagga. Walayat Khagga was one of the MPAs who then joined the PPP-Patriots that didn’t mind entering into a deal with Gen Musharraf — an act which the rest of the party under Benazir Bhutto repeated after half a decade of contemplation.

Pir Walayat Shah’s joining of such renegades kind of foreclosed his options with the PPP, but that coincided with his beckoning as a potential winning candidate the Q-League is always looking for. As a Q man he easily won the contest in 2008 in the absence of his traditional rival, Pir Ahmed Shah who had since passed away.

Ahmed Shah’s departure, however, created room for a couple of more Khaggas to try their luck in the 2008 election. Also, it encouraged non-Khaggas to press for an end to the Khagga monopoly.

PML-N fielded Mehr Nazar Fatiana, former National Alliance nominee, as its candidate for election in 2008. Fatiana appeared to have proved his worth by getting some 16,500 votes against Walayat Khagga’s 25,000. Walayat Khagga then fell on the wrong side of the law and was disqualified for having a fake Bachelor’s degree.

Come the 2011 by-election and Walayat Khagga still managed to win the favour of the PML-N, a party that calls for rule of law and justice. He and the PML-N had to finally settle for fielding his son after a court ruled that he could not contest the polls due to his earlier disqualification.

The PML-N had put two and two together and decided that the circumstances didn’t permit it to once again have Nazar Fatiana as its candidate for the by-election. With its own loyalist Ahmed Shah Khagga gone, it realised there was an opportunity for it to rope in a man, and a Khagga, who had a history of winning the seat.

On the other hand, the PPP was prevented from as much as making a move to re-enrol Walayat Khagga by the prevalent policy towards the Patriots. President Zardari’s party has been cold to any peace messages from the Patriots. It is ready to reconcile with everyone but fails to overcome the Patriots’ betrayal, probably because it is a more recent hurt as compared to injuries caused by others.

Perhaps the Patriots are better off keeping their distance at a time when the PPP is faced with an opposition-media campaign.

But it hasn’t been always like this. In the period following the PPP’s emergence as the single largest party in the National Assembly after the 2008 election, friendly overtures were made to the PPP from the Patriots, but were not reciprocated.

The PPP may want to embrace these estranged members at a time when it is prepared to have people like Faisal Saleh Hayat as ministers in the federal cabinet, not as Patriots but as PML-Q members; however, it doesn’t have the high vantage point that it occupied just after the 2008 polls.

The PP-220 by-polls in Sahiwal were significant. They came in the midst of the PPP and PML-Q exchanging vows for a durable alliance and in the middle of a campaign buildup by the PML-N. The PPP-Q mathematics compelled them to back a man, again a Khagga scion, who had won a sizeable number of votes in the 2008 general election as an independent.

This strategy failed as a variety of factors such as biradari and administrative interference and popularity of the party and individual candidate played their part. The PML-N is now striving to use it as proof of public sentiment against the ‘corrupt Zardari mafia’ — which doesn’t mean that all things are adding up to a logical answer in the camp of the Sharif.

The PML-N government in Punjab has just come up with an admission that with updating the electoral rolls pending, it won’t be in a position to hold the local bodies’ polls in the province for another six months. Since the same voters’ rolls are used in general elections, the Punjab government’s statement is in direct conflict with the PML-N push for a snap poll.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.