LAHORE: Arch-rivals Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) are facing each other in the by-election for a National Assembly seat in Jhelum to be held on Wednesday.

The NA-63 (Jhelum-II) seat fell vacant after the death of PML-N’s Raja Iqbal Mehdi.

It will be the another most interesting electoral bout after the NA-122 (Lahore) by-poll held in October last year in which National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq of the PML-N had defeated PTI’s Abdul Aleem Khan in what was tagged as one of the costliest by-polls in the country’s electoral history.

For the Jhelum contest, the ruling party has fielded late Mehdi’s son Matloob, while the PTI has awarded ticket to Fawad Hussain Chaudhry, who belongs to the family of former Punjab governor Chaudhry Altaf.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has also pitched its candidate, Jahangeer Mirza Jhelumi, and Diwan Hashmat, an independent candidate, is also in the run. The main competition is expected between Matloob and Fawad. Matloob’s father Iqbal Mehdi enjoyed a great following in the constituency and had defeated PTI’s Saeed Mirza with a margin of about 75,000 votes in the 2013 general election.

Fawad is banking on the popularity of Imran Khan as well as his family’s clout in the area. His uncle, the late Chaudhry Altaf, had earned much respect in Jhelum through his hard work in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The PML-Q and Jamaat-i-Islami, otherwise allies of the PTI, are supporting the PML-N nominee. The reason being given is that Fawad had contested and lost the 2013 general election from the platform of the PML-Q and ditched it in June this year to join the PTI. And also, senior PML-Q leader Raja Basharat also happens to be a relative of Matloob.

The JI says its workers dislike Fawad simply because he had been with the PPP and Gen Musharraf’s APML and the party detests both the references. JI leaders are seeking retribution from the PTI which, they say, had ditched them in the Dir (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) by-poll. To the consolation of Fawad, Majlis-i-Wahdatul Muslimeen, representative of Shia voters, has announced its support for him.

At one point during the campaign, Fawad lamented that the PTI MPs were ignoring his election campaign while Punjab chief minister’s son Hamza Shehbaz, with the help of elected representatives from the district, was running Matloob’s campaign.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has issued a show-cause notice to Hamza for violating its code of conduct by visiting the constituency and talking to the media there.

Imran Khan also addressed a couple of election meetings there notwithstanding the obstruction created by the district administration. There are 427,757 voters in the constituency comprising Jhelum city, cantonment and a part of Pind Dadan Khan tehsil. The ECP says it has set up 9,476 polling stations and is considering deploying army troops to maintain order on the polling day.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2016